5 Reasons to Count on Community Foundations

If you’ve already established a donor-advised fund (DAF) or another type of fund at ACF, you know how easy charitable giving through ACF can be—flexible, effective, and fulfilling to help you achieve your goals for improving lives in your community as well as fulfilling your own estate planning and financial objectives. 

If you have yet to work with ACF, or any community foundation, or are concerned that it would supersede your trusted professional advisor, don’t worry. As experts in charitable giving options, we work with professional advisors to complement their services. We are dedicated to partnerships that amplify the impact of your donations. Here are the top five reasons to work with ACF: 

1. You promised yourself last year that you would never again get caught in a year-end crunch. The last few months of the year are always hectic with holiday activities. When you layer on the added stress of tax planning and completing the charitable giving plans you set back in January, you might tip the scales from hectic to chaos. ACF can help organize your year-end charitable giving early, so it achieves both your financial and your philanthropic goals.
2. You are concerned about recent drops in funding to local charities, but are not sure about what you can do to help. ACF has its finger on the pulse of our community’s needs and the nonprofits that are addressing them. Our team can provide information about program cuts that have left people in our community vulnerable and share ideas and recommendations for how you can help fill the gaps.
3. Your tax advisor has suggested that 2025 is an important year to increase your charitable donations, but you do not want your gifts to favorite charities to spike and then drop again. For the small percentage of people who itemize deductions on their individual income tax returns, 2025 may indeed present opportunities. ACF is happy to work with you and your tax advisors to structure gifts to a DAF or other type of fund to ensure that you are leveraging tax advantages while also maintaining consistent support year after year for the causes you care about.
4. You’re thinking about selling commercial property or private business interests, and you’ve heard that charitable gifts can be an effective component of the transaction if structured correctly. Many people do not realize until it’s too late that they can give real estate or closely-held stock to a fund at the community foundation well in advance of a future sale and achieve significant tax benefits while also setting aside charitable dollars to make a positive difference in the community either immediately or across generations. Before you and your advisors put any pen to paper on the disposition of real estate or private business interests, please reach out.
5. You are updating your estate plan and want to leave money to charity, but you have not decided which charity. Please reach out to us anytime when updating your estate plan or related financial documents, such as beneficiary designations on IRAs, life insurance policies, or retirement accounts. Our team is happy to work with your advisors to deploy the community foundation’s flexible tools to round out your estate plan and ensure you are exploring the tax benefits of using various types of assets to fund your charitable intentions.

Whether you have already started a fund at the community foundation or you are considering getting involved, we look forward to our conversation!