What is a Community Foundation?
There are over 700 community foundations across the United States. Several hundred others exist around the world. The Council on Foundations, the nation’s professional association of foundations, provides the following information about community foundations:
Community foundations are tax-exempt public charities serving thousands of people who share a common interest—improving the quality of life in their area. Individuals, families, businesses, and organizations create permanent charitable funds that help their region meet the challenges of changing times. The foundation invests and administers these funds. All community foundations are overseen by a volunteer board of leading citizens and run by professionals with expertise in identifying their community's needs.
Community foundations:
- Know their communities
- Share your interests
- Care about the future
- Offer giving vehicles that are easy to set up and manage and provide tax benefits
There are many reasons to invest in your local community foundation. Community foundations go beyond simply making grants that advance charitable activities. They also identify current and emerging issues, channel resources to address their communities’ needs, and help their regions prepare for the future.
What does the Eastern Carolina Community Foundation do?
The Eastern Carolina Community Foundation encourages philanthropy and creates opportunities to improve the quality of life for present and future generations in the Pee Dee region of South Carolina. We also provide philanthropic leadership in the community. We serve the residents of seven counties: Chesterfield, Darlington, Dillon, Florence, Marion, Marlboro, and Williamsburg.
We serve four major roles: grantmaker to any non-profit in the region; community convener bringing together government, businesses, and individuals to address community issues; endowment consolidator enabling smaller private foundations to save fees and increase returns; and philanthropic advisor helping individuals, families, or businesses to set up targeted funds efficiently and effectively.
Where does the Community Foundation get its funds?
Donors to a community foundation range from people with large financial resources to those of modest means. Individuals may donate to an existing fund with the Eastern Carolina Community Foundation or establish a new fund. As a public charity, the community foundation receives donations from a wide diversity of individuals and organizations.
What are the financial benefits of giving to the Community Foundation?
The Eastern Carolina Community Foundation’s approach to planned giving offers a number of important financial benefits to donors. Because community foundations generally manage a large number of funds, administrative costs and service fees for any one fund are minimized—meaning less overhead cost to the donor’s fund. Donors receive full benefits of a tax deduction to a public charity.
The Eastern Carolina Community Foundation also offers a number of different types of funds to accommodate donors who prefer the long–term strategy of endowments as well as those who want to give more actively each year. Donors can choose to establish one of these funds, which allow them to recommend grants, or can choose to contribute to an existing fund that is flexible to respond to emerging needs in the community.
What is the difference between a private family foundation and a fund with the Community Foundation?
Setting up a fund at the community foundation offers an easier alternative to setting up a private foundation. In addition to the tax benefits, setting up a fund through the Eastern Carolina Community Foundation has an extremely short turn-around time. Additionally, the staff of the foundation takes care of auditing and financial reporting requirements. Many community foundation donors are also pleased by the fact that community foundations have none of the annual payout requirements of family foundations. That means donors may take the time necessary to be thoughtful in recommending charities to receive grants from their fund.
How does the Community Foundation differ from other nonprofit organizations?
Most nonprofit organizations have a specific mission. By contrast, a community foundation’s mission is very broad: to improve the quality of life in a given area. This breadth of mission reflects our ability to make grants in any field of interest with a charitable benefit to local communities. This flexibility allows us to serve a wider group of potential donors on the one hand and, on the other, a wider group of nonprofit organizations whom we consider our partners in improving local communities.
Area nonprofits benefit from having a local community foundation because the community foundation helps money stay in a community. Community foundations benefit local nonprofits in other ways, too: besides having local grant money available, some nonprofits ask the community foundation to manage an endowment on their own behalf. As it grows, a community foundation gradually becomes the center for all charitable giving in a community. We help make connections between the people who want to give and the people who need their support.
How can people give to the Community Foundation?
Your contributions are tax deductible in the year they are made. Because the Foundation is a public charity, contributions qualify for the maximum deductibility for income, gift and estate tax purposes. Individuals may give now, enabling them to support local charities during their lifetime and in perpetuity. This can be done with gifts of cash, stocks, real estate, or other assets.
Those who choose a deferred gift can take advantage of key elements in estate planning. These planned gifts allow for tax advantages now for the commitment of a charitable gift later. Donors may also include provisions in their wills for contributions to an established fund or to create a new fund at the Community Foundation. A contribution may save estate taxes as well as ensure the donor’s charitable interests will be supported.
How do I contact the Community Foundation?
You may contact the Community Foundation by calling 843-667-1131 or emailing to sarah@easterncarolinacf.org. For more information, you can visit our website at www.easterncarolinacf.org.
|