Your charitable giving is important and substantial enough that you are choosing, or have already chosen, to formalize it in a foundation.  Doing so can provide you or your business a lifetime of personal fulfillment and tax benefits, and give you a tool to create a legacy that others can carry on.  However, managing a foundation over the long haul can prove to be more challenging than many people expect.  As the community’s trusted philanthropic advisor, CICF can provide you custom solutions to those challenges, including:

Easing administrative and regulatory burdens:  Congress and the IRS create ever-changing rules for foundations; affecting investments, grant eligibility, family involvement, relationships with businesses and advisors, and much more.  A supporting foundation or donor-advised fund at CICF can relieve you of the burden of tax reporting and regulation, many times at less cost than doing it on your own.  Also, by associating your philanthropy with CICF you have access to programs and services that essentially becomes your foundation staff.  Family meetings, grantmaking expertise, back-office administration, and much more are available to donor-advised funds and supporting foundations.

Taking your time:  the required five percent annual pay-out for private foundations may not allow you to complete a proper review of organizations you want to support or not give you the flexibility to let a pool of money grow so that you can make a larger gift.  Creating a companion donor-advised fund at CICF can accept contributions from your foundation, help you meet your annual federal spending requirement, and give you access to CICF’s services and programs for donors.  (Donor-advised funds don’t have an annual pay-out requirement.)

Avoiding public scrutiny:  you may wish to be anonymous in your giving, or to avoid being inundated with requests.  You or your private foundation can establish a variety of funds at CICF through which anonymous grants can be made.

Smoothing life’s transitions:  major changes in the life of the founder, or the eventual geographic dispersion of the next generations, can cause a foundation to lose momentum.  You can transfer the foundation’s assets to a fund at CICF to help carry on your legacy or help the next generations do so.

Investment flexibility:  you may be interested in donor-advised funds but don’t want to move money from your current financial manager.  For larger funds, CICF can invest your fund with your current manager through our partnership with American Funds or through individual relationships with advisors.  And, supporting foundations at CICF can create and manage their own investment policies.

Gift flexibility:  a large percentage of household wealth, especially for entrepreneurs, is held in illiquid assets such as real estate, privately-held companies, partnerships, and tax-deferred retirement assets.  The tax deductibility for such gifts is lower with private foundations, and the IRS has many rules on private foundations holding interest in the family business.  Supporting foundations and other funds at CICF give you the maximum flexibility in your choice of assets to give, and the maximum tax deductibility.

There is so much more we’d like you to know
Visit The Family Experience, Philanthropic Resource Center, or Ways to Give pages for more information on CICF’s services for donors. CICF can work with you and your advisors in a confidential, no-cost setting to explore your best options to achieve your charitable and financial goals. 

Contact any member of our development team at 317.634.2423:
• Rob MacPherson, ext. 509 or robm@cicf.org
• Brad Little, ext. 301 or bradl@cicf.org
• Jan Edmondson, ext. 510 or jane@cicf.org 
• Tony Macklin, ext. 505 or tonym@cicf.org