Balancing immediate and long-term support for your favorite community causes

At Wayne County Community Foundation, we’re committed to working with individuals, families, and businesses to help make a difference in the causes you care about. Indeed, many people have at least a general idea of the community impact they’d like to achieve when they first establish a fund. If you’ve already established a Donor Advised or other type of Fund at the Community Foundation, or if you are considering doing so, you might have a list of charities and priorities as your focus.

Our team can certainly help you achieve your charitable goals, including giving to charities you’ve supported for years, as well as introducing you to new initiatives and programs that fall within your areas of interest. Identifying recipients and goals for impact is certainly important in your philanthropy plan.

Here’s another question that’s important to answer: How long would you like your charitable dollars to be at work? The team at the Community Foundation is equipped to help you with this component of your giving, too. Here are six questions we’ll consider when establishing your charitable giving plan and corresponding fund structure:

1. Are the causes and issues that matter most to you likely to represent short-term, immediate community needs, or community needs that will be important for generations?
2. Would you like your children, grandchildren, or other loved ones to help guide your charitable fund in the future?
3. Would you like to see and experience the results of your giving now, or are you more focused on establishing something lasting beyond your lifetime?
4. Are tax savings, estate planning goals, or retirement income needs part of what you’d like your charitable plan to support?
5. If you’re interested in both immediate impact and long-term legacy, what portion of your charitable fund would you like to see spent down versus preserved in perpetuity?
6. When you think about your charitable impact—whether in five years or fifty—what would make you feel your fund or funds at the Community Foundation accomplished their purpose?

As we work together to consider these questions, the Community Foundation team is happy to offer suggested reading to help inform your decision-making process about the benefits of each type of structure, or a hybrid.

Many donors choose to combine strategies as they work with the Community Foundation to build a portfolio of charitable giving vehicles to accomplish all aspects of their philanthropy goals. Here is an example:

• A Donor Advised Fund to organize annual giving to favorite charities, including taking advantage of “bunching” techniques to front-load contributions to take advantage of itemizing charitable deductions.
• A Designated Fund to support a specific favorite charity in perpetuity, ensuring that charitable funds will be preserved even if the charity falls on hard times.
• Annual gifts to the Community Foundation’s General Fund so that critical issues can be addressed in perpetuity as the community’s needs change over time.
• Beneficiary designations on traditional IRAs and other qualified retirement plans naming both the Designated Advised Fund and/or the Community Foundation’s General Fund to receive the proceeds.

Please reach out anytime. The Community Foundation team is here to talk with you about your favorite charities, your philanthropy values, and your goals for impact. Together, we can create a charitable giving plan that reflects your vision, whether that means lasting forever, making a difference right now, or both.

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