For Donors

Giving Options

• Community Fund

By making a gift to our Community Fund, you allow your gift to be used to meet ever-changing community needs – including future needs that often cannot be anticipated at the time your gift is made. We evaluate all aspects of community well-being – arts and culture, economic development, education, environment, health and human services, neighborhood revitalization, and more. The flexibility of your unrestricted gift enables our Board of Directors to respond to the community’s most pressing needs, today and tomorrow.
 

• Field of Interest Funds

You can target your gift to address needs in an important area of community life. The arts. Aging. At-risk youth. You identify your personal interest area when making your gift; our board awards grants to community agencies and programs that are making a difference in the area you select.

• Designated Funds

You can direct your gift to a specific charity or purpose. Help provide ongoing funding for a senior center, museum, your church, or virtually any non-profit charitable organization. You identify the recipient or recipients you wish to benefit through your gift; our staff manages the annual distribution of funds.

• Donor-Advised Funds

You can have ongoing involvement in the use of your gift and if desired, work with our grantmaking staff, identifying ways to use dollars from your Donor Advised Fund to address the issues and needs you care about most. Your recommendations are submitted to our local board for confirmation; we then distribute grant dollars.

• Partner Funds

You can make a lasting contribution to your local community with a Geographic Component Fund. A broad-based local board of your county will evaluate the community’s ever-changing needs and use your gift to help meet them.  The Community Foundation will match your Endowment 25 to 50 percent.

Why create a Donor Advised Fund?

Opening a Donor-Advised Fund allows you to make a gift to your community foundation, then remain actively involved in suggesting uses for your gift. It also generates a matching grant to the Community Foundation from the Maddox Foundation, up to $9 million.

A Donor-Advised Fund provides a convenient and flexible tool for individuals, families, businesses, or groups who want to be personally involved in suggesting grant awards made possible by their fund. Donor Advised Funds are typically less costly and easier to administer than other forms of philanthropic giving (such as family or corporate foundations).

Donor Advised Funds include these benefits:

• You can establish a charitable legacy in your name, in the name of your family, or in
  honor of any individual or organization you select. You can also use a name for your
  fund which provides anonymity for your giving.

• You can recommend grants from your fund to causes within our eight-county area or anywhere in the United States!

• You know your gift will be carefully invested and managed via our proven stewardship practices. You are eligible to receive maximum tax benefits in the year your gift is
  made.

• Your gift can generate the long-term advantages of endowment funding – principal from
  your gift can be invested, not spent; investment income is then used to make grants.

• You can add to your fund at any time and receive tax benefits with each new gift.

Donor Advised Funds are simpler to start and maintain than private foundations. Most importantly, they provide maximum tax benefits for individuals, families and businesses.

 

Donor Advised Funds	Private Foundations
Cash Gifts, deduct 50% AGI Deduct 30 % AGI on long-term appreciated securities Easy to establish Minimal administrative fees No minimum payout Grantmaking advice	30 % AGI 20 % AGI on long-term appreciated securities Several months to establish Typically higher administrative fees 5% minimum payout on their own 1-2% excise tax Self-dealing disclosure requirements