The East Bay Community Foundation offers a menu of giving options designed to meet a variety of charitable interests and financial planning goals. These options are available to individual donors and their families, corporations and nonprofit organizations. And no matter the option you choose, the Foundation will handle all administrative and reporting requirements.
Donor Advised Funds
Testamentary Funds – or Bequests
Agency Funds
Unrestricted Funds
Supporting Foundations
Designated Funds
Donor Advised Funds
The Foundation's donor advised fund program allows you to create a fund, receive an immediate income tax deduction, and then recommend grants from the fund over time. Because they are simple and inexpensive to administer and are subject to fewer regulations and restrictions than private foundations, donor advised funds have quickly become a popular charitable-giving vehicle. You can use your fund to support your long-time interests and you can work closely with Foundation staff to learn more about the needs of effective nonprofit organizations. Click here for Donor Advised Fund Guidelines.
Testamentary Funds – or Bequests
A testamentary fund is a means to guarantee your charitable intentions are fulfilled after you have passed on. The fund can be established with a gift from your estate, either immediately by a bequest or after a period of time through a planned gift. The Foundation works with you to write a fund agreement that describes how you would like your fund to operate. You keep a copy of the agreement with your estate documents and you include your fund at the Foundation in your estate plan. We keep a copy in order to plan for and execute your wishes precisely.
You may create a fund that your spouse, partner, children or grandchildren can advise. It can support the charities you have supported during your lifetime. It can be a scholarship fund -- or any kind of fund you would like. As time goes by, you may change your fund if your interests change, and as long as you do not change the name of the fund, you do not have to change your estate planning documents.
The important benefit you secure by entering into this kind of arrangement with the East Bay Community Foundation – as opposed to doing so with other institutions or specialists – is that we don’t operate a business aimed at accumulating wealth. Our mission is effective philanthropic giving so our clients’ wishes and dreams are fulfilled. When you open a testamentary fund with us, you’ll have the peace of mind that your intentions become our intentions.
Charitable trusts established at other institutions can be transferred to the East Bay Community Foundation. For information on the benefits of such a transfer, click here.
Agency Funds
Nonprofit organizations may establish a fund to assist in building their financial capacity. These funds allow a community-based organization to use the Foundation's expertise in accepting complex assets such as gifts of stock, mutual funds, real estate, closely held stock, S corporation stock or a wide variety of planned gifts. They also allow the nonprofit organization to make use of the Foundation's training for its board and staff and of the Foundation's long history of investment management of institutional assets.
Unrestricted Funds
An unrestricted fund supports the Foundation's endowment and competitive grant making programs. You can create a fund that will support the most critical needs of Alameda and Contra Costa counties by utilizing the Foundation's expertise and history in meeting those needs. Your fund will support the changing needs of our community over the years, being available to meet the challenges of today and the challenges of tomorrow we may not even imagine.
Supporting Foundations
High-net-worth individuals interested in significant giving often choose to establish supporting foundations. Supporting foundations provide you with all the benefits of a private foundation while also providing greater tax benefits and fewer administrative headaches. Supporting foundations are distinct legal entities, which distinguishes them from donor advised funds. A supporting foundation has its own board of directors, makes its own decisions and has its own 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status from the IRS. Supporting Foundations require an initial gift of $1,000,000.
Designated Funds
Designated funds enable you to support one or more specific organizations of your choice. These funds can be established to ensure that a particular charitable organization will receive your support over a long period of time, even in perpetuity. This also is an appealing way to support the groups from which you have benefited—such as a school, an arts organization, an environmental organization or social service agency.
