Congratulations to Dr. Nidhal Badrouchi on receiving the 2024 Mike Maidenberg Emerging Leader Award! 

Dr. Nidhal Badrouchi is a senior research scientist at the University of North Dakota's Energy and Environmental Research Center (EERC), with over 11 years of experience in oil and gas industry and energy research. His work focuses on sustainable energy solutions, including carbon storage, CO2-enhanced oil recovery, and hydrogen storage. 

With a background in chemical engineering, Dr. Badrouchi previously led a production team in Tunisia's oil refining industry, where he achieved record-breaking production levels at his plant. He later moved to the United States to pursue a Ph.D. in Petroleum Engineering at the University of North Dakota. 

Since joining the EERC in 2020, Dr. Badrouchi has combined his industry expertise with cutting-edge research to address global energy challenges. His work bridges practical applications and innovation, driving efforts to decarbonize industrial processes and advance clean energy technologies.

In addition to receiving the Mike Maidenberg Emerging Leader Award, Dr. Badrouchi has selected the Grand Forks Senior Center to receive a scholarship to attend the 2025 Chamber Leadership Class. He said, "I believe that supporting and giving back to those who have already served and contributed so much to our community is one of the greatest moral responsibilities of leadership."​

About the Mike Maidenberg Leadership Endowment and Emerging Leader Award

In 2004, the Mike Maidenberg Leadership Endowment was established at the Community Foundation by Grand Forks Herald employees to honor Publisher Mike Maidenberg on his retirement. It was a fitting way to thank and commemorate Mike’s long time civic efforts in Grand Forks. His leadership was instrumental in strengthening our community, especially after the flood of 1997. His leadership presence continued as he was at the forefront of establishing the Community Foundation, serving as our first Board President. Mike remains committed to the quality of life in communities and is a strong advocate for revitalization of downtown areas.
 
Nominations for the Mike Maidenberg Emerging Leader Award are based on the following leadership characteristics: Positive Attitude and Adaptability, Communication and Vision, Integrity, Education and Innovation, Creativity, Intelligence, and Team Building.

The 2024 award nominees were Dr. Nidhal Badrouchi, Tom Hennessy, Michael Britz, and Kris Brown.

To make a gift to the Mike Maidenberg Leadership Endowment to support future nonprofit scholarships, click here.

​At the community foundation, we’ve recently been asked by attorneys, CPAs, and financial advisors for “cheat sheet” resources to make it easy to determine which type of charitable planning tool is best for a particular client. We love that idea! We’re always happy to be a sounding board for any client situation where charitable giving is an option. Please reach out anytime you and a client are discussing philanthropy. To get your wheels turning, here are three scenarios that have popped up frequently over the last few weeks.
 
Streamline and tax-optimize charitable giving
 
If: Your client supports many different charities every year…
 
Then: A donor-advised fund at the community foundation can be an excellent tool to help a client organize their giving to favorite charities, such as local organizations, places of worship, and an out-of-state alma mater. Clients appreciate how easy it is to support multiple charities while the community foundation’s systems keep track of everything. Plus, clients can give stock and other appreciated assets to their donor-advised funds, often avoiding capital gains tax and simplifying tax receipts to provide their accountants when tax time rolls around. 
 
Support a specific charity while minimizing risk
 
If: Your client has supported a particular charity for many years, intends for that support to continue, and also wants to be sure that the funds are used effectively …
 
Then: Through a designated fund at the community foundation, a client can make tax-deductible gifts–during life and through estate gifts–that are set aside to be used exclusively for a particular organization. The community foundation makes distributions from the fund according to the client’s wishes. An advantage of a designated fund is that the assets are out of creditors’ reach if the charity were to run into financial trouble. Plus, a client who is 70 ½ or older can make Qualified Charitable Distributions up to $105,000 per year (increasing to $108,000 in 2025) from IRAs to a designated fund. 
 
Leave a charitable bequest and reap significant tax benefits
 
If: Your client intends to provide for charities in an estate plan and owns an IRA or other qualified retirement plan … 
 
Then: By naming a fund at the community foundation as the beneficiary of a qualified retirement plan, your client achieves extremely tax-efficient results. Not only is estate tax avoided on the retirement plan assets flowing to the charitable fund, but income tax is also avoided. Indeed, the income tax hit on retirement proceeds left to heirs can be steep. 
 
The bottom line here is this:
 
If you encounter any situation with a client where charitable giving could be involved …
 
Then please reach out! Most of the time, the community foundation can offer a solution that meets both the client’s tax and estate planning goals and the client’s objectives for supporting their favorite charities. At the very least, we can point you in the right direction.
 
The team at the Community Foundation is a resource and sounding board as you serve your philanthropic clients. We understand the charitable side of the equation and are happy to serve as a secondary source as you manage the primary relationship with your clients. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not intended as legal, accounting, or financial planning advice.  

As you and other attorneys, CPAs, and financial advisors put the finishing touches on implementing clients’ year-end charitable giving plans, you may have a moment when it hits you: “Wait, how exactly does a Qualified Charitable Distribution work?” 
 
That’s a great question, and you are not alone if you’re asking. Even though QCDs are well-covered in financial media, they’re complex enough that it’s hard to remember the nuances when you’re hit with a situation where a client might benefit.
 
The team at the Community Foundation is here for you! Please reach out with any of your charitable giving questions, including the most common questions about QCDs:
 
“Is an IRA the only eligible source for Qualified Charitable Distributions?”
 
Short answer: Almost.
 
Long answer: An individual can make a Qualified Charitable Distribution directly to an eligible charity from a traditional IRA or an inherited IRA. If the individual’s employer is no longer contributing to a Simplified Employee Pension (SEP) plan or a Savings Incentive Match Plan for Employees (SIMPLE) IRA, the individual may use those accounts as well. In theory, a Roth IRA could be used to make a QCD, but it is rarely advantageous to do that because Roth IRA distributions are already tax-free.
 
“What is the difference between a QCD and an RMD?”
 
Short answer: Quite a bit! But a QCD can count toward an RMD. 
 
Long answer: Everyone must start taking Required Minimum Distributions (“RMDs”) from their qualified retirement plans, including IRAs, when they reach the age of 73. RMDs are taxable income. The Qualified Charitable Distribution, by contrast, is a distribution directly from certain types of retirement plans (such as IRAs) to certain types of charities. A QCD can count toward the taxpayer’s RMD for that year. And because the QCD goes directly to charity, the taxpayer is not taxed on that distribution.
      
“Can a taxpayer make a Qualified Charitable Distribution even if the taxpayer is not yet required to take Required Minimum Distributions?” 
 
Short answer: Yes–within a very narrow age window. 
 
Long answer: RMDs and QCDs are both distributions that impact retirement-age taxpayers, and it would seem logical that the age thresholds would be the same. Under the SECURE Act, though, the required date for starting RMDs shifted from 70 ½ to 72 and is now up to 73 (which is better for taxpayers who want to delay taxable income). A corresponding shift was not made to the eligible age for executing QCDs; that age is still 70 ½ (which benefits taxpayers who wish to access IRA funds to make charitable gifts even before they are required to take RMDs).
 
“Can my client direct a QCD to a fund at the Community Foundation?”
 
Short answer: Yes, if it’s a qualifying fund.
 
Long answer: While donor-advised funds are not eligible recipients of Qualified Charitable Distributions, other types of funds at the Community Foundation can receive QCDs. These funds include unrestricted funds, field-of-interest funds, designated funds, and endowment funds established by nonprofit organizations. 
 
“How much can my client give through a QCD?” 
 
Short answer: $105,000 per year in 2024, increasing to $108,000 in 2025.
 
Long answer: A Qualified Charitable Distribution permits a client (and a spouse from a spouse’s own IRA or IRAs) to transfer up to $105,000 in 2024 (and $108,000 in 2025) from an IRA (or multiple IRAs) to a qualified charity. So, a married couple may be eligible to direct up to a total of $210,000 in 2024 to charity from IRAs and avoid significant income tax liability. 
 
The Community Foundation is here to help you and your clients tap the potential of QCDs. Please reach out! We’d love to talk about a QCD strategy for your clients’ immediate gifting needs and beyond.
 
The team at the Community Foundation is a resource and sounding board as you serve your philanthropic clients. We understand the charitable side of the equation and are happy to serve as a secondary source as you manage the primary relationship with your clients. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not intended as legal, accounting, or financial planning advice. 

As attorneys, CPAs, and financial advisors, you’re very aware of potentially significant upcoming changes to the tax laws that could impact your high net-worth clients. Whether or not a post-election Congress takes action to prevent the estate tax exemption sunset at the end of 2025 will potentially affect the way you design your clients’ wealth transfer strategies. 
 
During this phase of uncertainty, it may be useful to reflect on historical estate tax changes to see how similar situations have been resolved in the past, while at the same time taking a practical approach and advising clients that, while commentators may speculate, it is still impossible to accurately predict what might happen. Estate taxes certainly will continue to be on the minds of leaders in the charitable sector for many months to come. 
 
As you and other tax planning professionals watch and wait, it is important to keep charitable planning high on your list of strategies that could help blunt the impact of a lower estate tax exemption if the sunset were to occur. That’s because gifts to charities are deductible from a client’s taxable estate. Even during this era of uncertainty, be sure to keep in mind an important planning technique for your charitably-inclined clients that delivers multiple tax benefits and offers some degree of flexibility: Naming a charity, such as a fund at the Community Foundation, as the beneficiary of an IRA or other qualified retirement plan. 
 
Here’s why this is such a powerful technique, especially now:
 
Income tax savings. When your client designates a fund at the Community Foundation as the beneficiary of an IRA, the fund receives the assets without having to pay income taxes. This is because charities are tax-exempt entities, allowing them to receive funds from qualified retirement accounts tax-free after your client’s death. This is not the case with qualified retirement plans flowing to heirs; the income tax hit can be significant.
 
Estate tax deduction: Naming a charity as a beneficiary of a retirement plan results in an estate tax charitable deduction, which reduces any applicable federal estate taxes. This means that the full value of the IRA can flow into your client’s fund at the Community Foundation free from the estate tax burden.
 
Flexibility. Clients can revise IRA beneficiary designations anytime during their lifetimes. So, as the end of 2025 draws closer, a client can update an IRA beneficiary designation to name a fund at the Community Foundation, which would protect against a drop in the estate tax exemption. If the sunset does not occur, the client could of course revise the beneficiary designation to leave a greater portion of retirement plan assets to heirs. Remember, though, that the income tax hit will still apply to proceeds flowing to heirs. That’s why many of your charitable clients will choose to leave IRAs to their funds at the Community Foundation even if the estate tax exemption does not sunset. And, of course, many clients truly want to leave a legacy and would love to incorporate charitable giving into their estate plans regardless of what happens with the tax laws. As tax and estate planning advisor, it is your responsibility–and opportunity–to help clients achieve their philanthropic wishes.   
 
Please reach out to the team at the Community Foundation to dive deeper into the ways you can help your clients fulfill their charitable goals, especially during this time when future tax laws are up in the air. We are here to help! 

The team at the Community Foundation is a resource and sounding board as you serve your philanthropic clients. We understand the charitable side of the equation and are happy to serve as a secondary source as you manage the primary relationship with your clients. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not intended as legal, accounting, or financial planning advice.  

Year-end gifts are a crucial component of every nonprofit organization’s operating budget, and December is a wildly busy time! Even with so many transactions flying around, it’s still important not to lose sight of the relationship side of fundraising, especially so that you and your team can continue to intentionally and methodically cultivate gifts to your endowment fund at the Community Foundation.
 
More than half of nonprofit organizations say they don’t have donor engagement plans. That’s a lot of missed opportunities! Enhancing donor engagement by creating entry points for their children is a strategy that can deliver a lot of good throughout the year, year after year. 
 
Here are three ways to plant seeds with donors about how leaving a legacy to your organization’s endowment creates meaningful opportunities for family engagement:
 
Help donors celebrate their legacies. Encourage donors to talk with their children about why they’ve chosen to support your organization over the years, and why they are particularly interested in ensuring that your mission stays strong for generations to come. Offer your donors tangible examples of how your mission could help their children–and their children’s children and grandchildren–at critical junctures many years in the future. This helps reinforce the power of endowment giving across generations. 
 
Offer site visits, with a twist. Naturally, you and your colleagues regularly encourage donors to see your work up close. But have you considered encouraging donors to bring their teenage or adult children along to a site visit? And have you made sure that during the site visit, you are pointing out longstanding programs that are made possible only because of gifts to your endowment fund over the years? Wrapping these two elements into your site visit strategies can give your endowment fundraising an instant boost. 
 
Make it easy for young donors to donate to your endowment. It’s never too early to start talking about endowment gifts! If your fundraising strategy includes outreach to children of current donors, or emerging philanthropists in general, be sure your communications and marketing materials include at least basic language about supporting your endowment. You want all of your donors to see that giving to your endowment fund at the Community Foundation is always an option, at every stage of a donor’s philanthropic journey. 
 
Please reach out to the team at the Community Foundation to explore these and other ideas for engaging young givers in your endowment-building efforts. We are here to help! 
 
This articles is provided for informational purposes only. It is not intended as legal, accounting, or financial planning advice. 

​For decades, bequests have been a small but relatively steady component of total charitable giving in the United States. You certainly understand the importance of bequests to growing your endowment fund at the Community Foundation. To that end, your fundraising materials likely include language to encourage donors to include endowment bequests in their wills or trusts. A donor can leave a particular dollar amount through a “specific” bequest, or leave a portion of the estate or trust remaining after taxes, expenses, and distributions to family and other beneficiaries (known as a “residuary” bequest). A donor can also name your organization’s endowment fund as the beneficiary of an IRA or other retirement plan. 
 
So, after a donor passes away, when does your endowment fund actually receive the money? It depends on the type of bequest, and the money rarely arrives quickly. But, the Community Foundation can help. For example:
 

• If a donor names your endowment fund at the Community Foundation as the beneficiary of an IRA, the Community Foundation will pursue a transfer of the proceeds from the IRA administrator as quickly as possible. 

 

• In the case of a donor who names your endowment fund as the recipient of a bequest in the donor’s will, which is subject to probate, full distribution of a residuary charitable bequest will typically occur after the probate process is completed. A specific bequest of a certain dollar amount may be released in a “partial distribution” earlier in the probate process. A complete probate process can take several months or even more than a year, depending on the complexity of the estate.

 

• If a donor has left a charitable bequest in a trust rather than a will, and therefore the estate is not subject to probate, distribution of the bequest may happen faster, but still, especially in the case of a residuary bequest, the trustees will want to ensure that all expenses, taxes, and other liabilities of the deceased donor can be covered before the trustee makes any distributions to beneficiaries, including to your endowment fund at the Community Foundation.

 
One of the benefits of working with the Community Foundation is that the Community Foundation team will take the lead on pursuing distributions from donors’ bequests to your organization’s endowment fund. Please reach out anytime with questions and to learn more.

This articles is provided for informational purposes only. It is not intended as legal, accounting, or financial planning advice. 

You’re likely well aware of the important role life insurance can play in your estate and financial plans. Indeed, more than half of GenX and Baby Boomers hold life insurance policies, and annual payouts from these policies total nearly $800 billion! What you might not know, though, is that life insurance can be a very effective charitable giving tool under certain circumstances, offering a unique opportunity to support causes you care about as you work with the Community Foundation to carry out your charitable objectives. 
 
Consider the following strategies:
 
Beneficiary designation. It’s easy to name your fund at the Community Foundation as a beneficiary of your life insurance policy. Although IRAs and other qualified retirement plans are frequently more tax-effective for charitable giving, life insurance is sometimes a viable and flexible option for a charitably-minded individual who wants to leave an estate gift that can fund favorite causes for many years into the future. 
 
Estate tax planning. "Second-to-die" life insurance policies, which may become more popular if the estate tax exemption decreases after 2025, can be used to hedge against anticipated estate taxes, thereby allowing you to provide well for family members and still have plenty in your estate to satisfy a bequest to a charity, such as your fund at the Community Foundation.
 
Boost your charitable capacity. Increasing coverage on an existing policy can be a cost-efficient way to include charitable giving in your estate plan. For example, if you have a million-dollar policy intended for four family members, adding $250,000 in coverage typically won't increase premiums by 25%. This allows you to include a fund at the Community Foundation as a fifth beneficiary, each receiving an equal share.
 
Repurposing term insurance. The U.S. life insurance market is growing rapidly, expected to reach more than $4 trillion by 2033–and a lot of it is term insurance. If you've outlived the initial need for your term policy (such as covering college expenses or a mortgage), consider continuing the policy for charitable purposes. Past premiums can be viewed as sunk costs, while future premiums become a moderate "investment" relative to the potential charitable impact.
 
Please reach out to the Community Foundation to discuss how you can use your life insurance to support your charitable priorities. Whether through a beneficiary designation, together with perhaps even a potentially tax-deductible transfer of the policy itself or ongoing dollars to pay the annual premium, we can work with you to navigate the options! The Community Foundation team is here to help you create a lasting legacy that supports the causes you care about most, especially while optimizing your estate planning at the same time.
 
The team at the Community Foundation is honored to serve as a resource and sounding board as you build your charitable plans and pursue your philanthropic objectives for making a difference in the community. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not intended as legal, accounting, or financial planning advice. Please consult your tax or legal advisor to learn how this information might apply to your own situation.

If you’ve reached or are nearing retirement age, you may be evaluating how charitable giving fits into your life in a bigger way than it did during your working years. If you’ve found that you have more time, more money, or both, now that work and raising children are in the rear view mirror, be sure you’re familiar with the various charitable giving techniques that are most appealing to retirees and the various ways the Community Foundation can help.
 
Here are four signals that it may be time to update your philanthropy strategies with the help of the Community Foundation team:
 

• You’re feeling more connected to local issues. Retirees often feel a greater connection to their community and favorite charities than people who are not retired. Whether it’s because annual income and corresponding giving capacity are more predictable, or because you have more time, getting involved with favorite charities can help you stay active and even avoid loneliness. The team at the Community Foundation stays in close contact with the many nonprofit organizations in our region, and we are happy to serve as a sounding board as you ramp up your involvement. 

 

• You may be less likely to itemize deductions. Many retirees apply the standard deduction on their income tax returns because they don’t have many expenses that qualify for itemization, such as business expenses and mortgage interest deductions. Now is a good time to evaluate with your tax advisor whether itemizing deductions in certain years could be beneficial. Through your fund at the Community Foundation, you may be able to concentrate charitable contributions to your donor-advised fund in particular tax years to trigger itemized deductions. This is called “bunching,” and a donor-advised fund, for example, can help you take advantage of itemizing tax deductions while still allowing you to provide steady support to nonprofits out of that fund in years that follow the itemizing year.

• You are more interested in involving your children and grandchildren in your philanthropy. The Community Foundation is happy to help you fulfill your desire to stay connected with children and grandchildren, including formalizing roles for family members as advisors and successor advisors of your donor-advised fund at the Community Foundation, or involving younger family members in site visits and other educational programs. The Community Foundation offers many ways to structure philanthropic priorities for generational wealth as well as create positive, authentic communication channels across an extended family.

 

• You are ready to start making Qualified Charitable Distributions. If you are at least age 70 ½, you can direct a tax-free distribution (up to $105,000 per spouse in 2024 and $108,000 in 2025) from an IRA to a qualified charity such as a field-of-interest or designated fund at the Community Foundation. If you must take Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs), the Qualified Charitable Distribution (QCD) is especially beneficial. This is because the distribution to charity counts toward RMDs and therefore never lands in your taxable income.

 
If these ideas capture your attention, please reach out! The Community Foundation is here to help you make the most of your giving, no matter what causes you choose to support. We look forward to collaborating to make your retirement years fulfilling and rewarding for you and the people–and community–you love. 
​
The team at the Community Foundation is honored to serve as a resource and sounding board as you build your charitable plans and pursue your philanthropic objectives for making a difference in the community. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not intended as legal, accounting, or financial planning advice. Please consult your tax or legal advisor to learn how this information might apply to your own situation.