Fostering Trust and Making a Difference

Many people are not aware of the extent to which America’s charitable organizations help improve quality of life in our communities. From social services to the arts, virtually every aspect of our lives is touched by the work of nonprofits. Indeed, the gifts Americans give to charity every year total more than $557 billion and provide critical support for nearly 1.5 million organizations that are helping communities thrive. 
 
Research shows that trust continues to be an important factor in charitable giving. Unfortunately, high levels of trust sometimes can be hard to achieve; 73% of donors surveyed said they felt that it is very important to trust a charity before giving, but only 19% say they highly trust charities.
 
So what should you do if you know you want to support a particular organization but you’ve not quite yet gained a level of trust to go “all in?” Or what if you want to support an overall area of community need but you’re not sure which organizations are best aligned with the results you want your charitable gifts to achieve? Or what if you’re fairly certain you know the specific organizations that are addressing your areas of interest right now, but you’re concerned that this “fit” might change over time as needs shift and charities evolve?
 
The Community Foundation can help in situations like these and many others like them. Here are three examples:

• If you’ve established a donor-advised fund at the Community Foundation to organize your giving, lean on the team at the Community Foundation for insights into which charities are best suited to achieve your goals for impact at any given time. Our team stays up to date on local charities, their priorities, and their programs and staff. We can provide information and insights to help you make informed decisions.
• If you’re committed to supporting a specific charity but you’d rather not give the money outright, you could consider setting up a designated fund at the Community Foundation to make distributions to the charity according to parameters you set. Because the charity receives the money in increments every year, charitable dollars remaining in the fund are protected from the charity’s creditors if the charity were to fall on hard times.  
• If you’d like the Community Foundation to help out even more, you might consider establishing a field-of-interest fund so that the Community Foundation team can deploy its expertise in selecting charities that are best suited from year to year to achieve your goals for community impact. 
• To ensure that the mission of the Community Foundation itself stays strong and that dollars will flow to support critical community needs for generations, you can establish an unrestricted fund at the Community Foundation. You can add to the unrestricted fund during your lifetime, such as through gifts of appreciated stock, and you can also include a gift to the fund in your estate plan through your will or an IRA beneficiary designation. 

 
The Community Foundation is unique in its structure as a perpetual institution governed by an independent board of directors. Our mission is to improve the quality of life in our region across generations by connecting donors to the causes they care about and leading on critical community issues. We’re honored to work alongside you and your family as you build trust with the charitable organizations that are making a difference for everyone who lives and works in the community we 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.