Frequently Asked Questions

Yes. We provide advice and support to Community Foundation donors and their advisors, including attorneys, CPAs, wealth advisors and insurance professionals. We are happy to discuss options for giving, provide more detail regarding our services, and prepare presentations for your clients. Please contact Michelle Lippart Hardwick by email or 920-702-7622 for more information.

We offer a variety of planned giving vehicles that may be of interest to your clients. The Community Foundation has the great privilege of being named as a beneficiary in a number of wills, life insurance policies and IRAs. We would love to have the opportunity to consult with your clients on the philanthropic portion of their estate.

Giving directly is one option; however, there can be benefits for clients who choose to establish a fund at the Community Foundation and make their philanthropic gifts via their fund:

• If a client has a high-income year (due to a fluctuation in earnings, the sale of a business or property, etc.), the client may wish to “pre-fund” future charitable giving by contributing an optimized amount to a fund with us. The client would then benefit from a larger-than-usual charitable deduction, which can be taken in the year of contribution to a family fund, to offset his or her higher income tax obligation. Plus, the client would have funds set aside to use in future years for ongoing charitable giving.
• If a client wishes to become more strategic in his philanthropy and move beyond transactional check-writing to more focused, impact-driven giving, he or she may want to take advantage of the advice and consulting services provided to the Community Foundation donors by our experienced team to develop and implement a giving plan that meets those goals.
• Some clients prefer to remain anonymous when making some or all of their charitable gifts. A fund at the Community Foundation permits them to make grants to the organizations of their choice while keeping the source of the grants confidential.
• Our online donor portal makes it easy to keep track of grants made throughout the year, and can be a useful tool in ensuring that a client’s giving is distributed across the desired organizations and in the desired amounts. Plus, there is only one “contemporaneous receipt” generated upon each contribution to the fund, which may simplify the client’s record keeping at tax time.

Most of the Foundation materials are provided online and are available in print by request. We’re happy to provide folders of information so that you have what you need at your fingertips. You may order print materials by contacting Michelle Lippart Hardwick by email or 920-702-7622.

The Community Foundation for the Fox Valley Region offers you a wide range of services to bring families together across the generations in support of shared interests and values. We can work with your clients to help identify their philanthropic interests and help you devise a giving plan to facilitating multi-session family or personal philanthropy engagements. We are happy to specifically tailor our materials and presentations, depending upon your clients’ needs and preferences. In addition, we have extensive experience in the nonprofit community and can be an invaluable resource for identifying nonprofits and initiatives that have an impact on the issues that matter the most to your client.

There are a number of reasons why our donors have chosen to open a fund at the Community Foundation for the Fox Valley Region. Partnering with us to set up a fund is faster, easier and less expensive than establishing a private foundation somewhere else, and includes the opportunity to engage with our experienced team of experts. Many donors also prefer the benefits of the donor advised fund platform, including the freedom from annual distribution requirement and annual Form 990-PF filings. Plus, grants can be made anonymously, an option that is not available with a private foundation.

Yes! The Community Foundation can absolutely help your clients convert their private foundations into either a donor advised fund within the Community Foundation or supporting organization. This situation comes up fairly often when clients find the administrative burden, tax reporting and/or required distributions no longer fit with their goals. We are quite familiar with the process of converting a private foundation into a fund held at the Community Foundation.