Many of our fundholders and fund advisors have partnered with the community foundation for years, others have established donor-advised funds, field-of-interest funds, scholarship funds, or unrestricted funds in the past couple of years, and others are evaluating whether to start a fund at the community foundation in 2025. Wherever you may be along your charitable giving journey, we are here to support your philanthropic goals.
Contact us to connect with a staff member about your philanthropic journey and continue reading below to learn more about the topics we’re thinking about with fundholders in early 2025.
Here’s a sneak peek at what’s covered below:
• A new year can bring fresh opportunities for community involvement, including introductions to charities you’ve not yet supported. Think of our team as your go-to sounding board for due diligence.
• A budget is important, even when it comes to charitable giving. The community foundation is happy to offer tips to help you plan your philanthropy goals for 2025 to align with your financial priorities.
• Charitable giving is a powerful thread that runs through multiple generations of many philanthropic families. We can help incorporate charitable giving into your legacy plans to achieve your goals for community impact and your intentions to empower financial independence in your children and grandchildren.
Due Diligence
We are here to support your charitable endeavors, no matter where your passions lie. There are thousands of charitable organizations out there doing amazing work to improve the quality of life for everyone. While most nonprofits are reputable and above-board in their governing and programs, it’s worth considering leaning on the community foundation to help you with due diligence for a few reasons:
• To protect your reputation against damage if you were to wind up supporting a charity that later becomes tainted by a scandal.
• To validate that the charity is not facing significant or unusual legal or financial risks.
• To avoid scams, which, unfortunately, are on the rise.
Our team always has its finger on the pulse of what’s going on with charitable organizations in our community. We can research the status of longstanding organizations, check into a brand-new organization, and everything in between. Our goal is to help ensure that your charitable contributions have the greatest possible impact.
Budget
Your family may be among those who are taking their charitable giving budgets more seriously this year, given uncertainty surrounding interest rates, potential new legislation, and possible stock market swings. At the same time, you also know that our community’s needs continue to rise. As 2025 gets into full swing, your favorite charities will be relying on additional resources and support from philanthropic sources.
• Carefully review the list of organizations you’ve supported over the last three years. Regardless of your donation levels, which charities are the most important to you.
• If you anticipate household budget constraints in 2025, there may be organizations to possibly put on hold and then revisit supporting again in future years.
• If you expect your income and assets to increase this year, consider increasing your charitable budget. Keep in mind that there are tax advantages to giving highly appreciated publicly traded stock to your fund at the community foundation.
• Add up your total giving over the last three years and then divide it by three to get your average. Consider either reducing or increasing that number to a level that fits within your financial situation to arrive at your tentative 2025 giving budget.
• Planning and budgeting is a great way to create more intentionality around your giving. Intentional giving is not only more rewarding for you, but it is also likely to increase your level of engagement with the recipient charities and enhance your understanding of how dollars are being deployed to meet the mission.
All in the Family
If you’ve not yet involved your children or grandchildren in your charitable giving, this may be the year to consider it. Children of all ages can benefit from learning even just a little bit about philanthropy and how charities improve the quality of life for everyone. Our team is happy to help you explore best practices for helping shape the young people in your life into caring, responsible adults and inspire your extended family to get more involved. Consider:
• How to structure legacies to favorite charities so that heirs can stay involved in your priorities across generations.
• How to ensure that children and grandchildren will be financially secure but still motivated to pursue independent personal and professional growth.
• How to foster and support the self-directed charitable passions of children and grandchildren.
Want to learn more?
Contact us to connect with a staff member!
We look forward to exploring strategies to help you choose and vet organizations, meet your financial and tax goals, and honor your wishes for your children to live happy and productive lives.
