Professional Advisors

For Professional Advisors

Our partnerships with professional advisors are an important relationship for connecting charitable clients to issues and areas in need. Donor established funds offer generous tax benefits, provide philanthropic assets for our communities, and enable ongoing giving.

Contributing Charitable Assets
Because your clients' situations are unique and change over time, we tailor philanthropic plans around all types of asset contributions — all of them offer generous tax benefits. After establishing their fund with an initial gift, donors can contribute any type of asset to it at any time.

Cash
A cash gift made with a check, wire transfer, or credit card is the simplest way to establish a named fund at the Community Foundation. Gifts are deductible up to 50% of the donor's adjusted gross income. Amounts exceeding this limit can be carried forward up to an additional five years.

Securities
Public and closely held stock gifts give donors deductions for full fair market values up to 30% of their adjusted gross income. Amounts exceeding this limit can be carried forward up to an additional five years. As an added benefit, donors avoid capital gains tax on the appreciated portion of the gift.

Real Estate
A gift of real estate can unlock high charitable value. There are many ways to gift property, depending on your clients' financial and charitable goals. Their options will provide a fair market value tax deduction and, in many cases, the avoidance of capital gains tax.

Retirement Plan Beneficiaries
An inherited retirement plan imposes income tax obligations on an heir. Plans such as profit sharing, 401(k), or IRA are good assets to gift to a named fund since they are some of the few assets that carry inherited income tax burdens.

Charitable Lead Trusts
This vehicle permits your client's named fund to receive an income interest for a specified period of time. Donors can recommend gifts from their fund to charities once the trust ends. The trust then benefits the individuals of their choosing: children, grandchildren, relatives or others.

Life Insurance
Donors receive an immediate tax deduction approximating the cash surrender value of a life insurance policy when they name the Community Foundation as the owner and beneficiary. Additionally, all subsequent premium payments made by your client are tax deductible.

Life Insurance Beneficiaries
Donors avoid federal estate taxes and create a charitable legacy by maintaining ownership of their policy and naming the Community Foundation as a beneficiary. During their lifetime they have access to its cash value. If they choose, they can change the beneficiary at any time.

Bequests
Your clients can establish or add to a named fund in their will or trust through a bequest to the Community Foundation. Their gift can fill any charitable aspiration, from establishing a Community Action Fund to leaving a family legacy to engage children in philanthropy.

Life Income Plans
These options offer an income for life, while enabling donors to leave a charitable legacy at a later time. Charitable Remainder Trusts and Charitable Gift Annuities allow an immediate calculated income tax deduction and eliminate capital gains tax on appreciated gifts held over a year.

Charitable Funds
Establishing a philanthropy begins by selecting a fund type and designating a name for the fund. Based on your clients' interests and goals, we can design a fund that is just right for donors and their families.

Donor Advised Funds
These family funds offer the flexibility to support a multitude of interests over time. They enable donors to give to a wide range of organizations, issues and communities, now and in the future.

Field of Interest Funds
Like many donors, your clients may be committed to particular causes based on their own experiences. Field of Interest Funds make it possible to support programs, causes, and communities they are passionate about, for generations to come.

Community Action Funds
When donors contribute to Community Action Funds, they enable the Community Foundation to respond quickly and nimbly to ever-changing community needs. Because of the contemporaneous and local stewardship of these funds, they are often timeless in terms of impact.

Scholarship Funds
Scholarship funds may be established with a wide range of goals and purposes in mind. Your clients may offer traditional scholarships, or customize fund awards for alternative scholarships.

Designated Agency Funds
If your clients have a focused commitment to an organization, they may choose to permanently support it through a Designated Fund. The Foundation's stewardship guarantees that the good works they value will continue, even if the original organization ceases to exist.

Agency Endowment Funds
Charitable organizations establish Agency Endowment Funds to help them meet both their current and future needs. The Foundation invests the endowment into a pool designed and managed for long-term charitable purposes, leaving the organization free to concentrate on its good works.

Giving Services
Your clients want the best results from their philanthropy. The Community Foundation has the knowledge, skills, experience, and technology to help them achieve their charitable goals today and for years to come.

Our resources are designed to make the process of giving simple, and our expertise ensures that donors' gifts have the ongoing impact they seek. Our expert staff will provide personalized solutions to help your clients define and achieve their charitable goals at every step.

Exploring and Planning
We will work with your clients to:

Create a charitable strategy with expert ideas on how they can best reach their objectives
Arrange site visits to organizations under consideration
Research and report on organizations serving their areas of interest
Turn their philanthropy into a favorite family tradition

Making it Happen
Because giving should be easy and convenient, we offer:

Turnkey administrative services
Screening for grant requests
Online fund access, so your clients can review contributions, income, balances, and make grant recommendations any time

Evaluating the Results
What's working … and what could be improved? We will help your clients:

Determine the impact of their fund's grants
Advocate for their philanthropic objectives
Team with other donors to leverage the results they want to achieve
Steward their fund's grants in perpetuity to ensure ongoing effectiveness