For Professional Advisors
The Professional Advisor and Community Foundations
As a professional advisor, you frequently have an opportunity to help your clients achieve their philanthropic goals as effectively as possible. Charitable giving, which offers specific tax benefits, gives you a unique vehicle to help your clients achieve other financial, personal, or business goals.
One of the greatest opportunities to assist clients in maximizing the personal benefits of giving occurs when they are making other major decisions, such as estate planning, sale of a business or other major asset, retirement planning, and at time of an unusual financial gain, such as a major bonus. In many of these situations, an opportunity exists to help clients make planned giving decisions. One of the simplest and most important things you can do to help your clients enjoy the benefits of planned giving is to pose the question; “Are you interested in structuring a way to support charitable opportunities or community needs?” If the answer is yes to this question then The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee may be able to help you help your client.
The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee
The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee can be a resource for you and a philanthropic partner for your clients. It is a vehicle through which individuals, families, companies, and charitable organizations can make gifts, current or deferred, to benefit their community. The Foundation is both permanent and flexible, thus assuring donors that the spirit of their gifts will endure.
Although The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee is a public charity, it does not promote only one charitable cause. Instead, its mission is to build and hold a permanent and growing endowment for the community’s changing needs and to honor the intentions of the donors who create that endowment. Through this unique mission, The Foundation can help your clients achieve goals in ways not available through other organizations.
The first community foundation began in Cleveland in 1914. It was soon followed by others in Boston, Chicago, and New York City. Now more than 650 community foundations are in major population centers in the United States. More than $31 billion in charitable assets are managed in this way. In 2002, more than $1.6 billion in grants emanated from community foundations and gifts exceeded $3.5 billion.
Community foundations are designed to accommodate the special concerns of each donor. The donor, through a gift or bequest, establishes a permanent, named fund within The Foundation's endowment. Depending on the charitable goals of the donor, grant distributions from the fund may be for broad or specific purposes. The donor may even participate with The Foundation through advice concerning the selection of grantees. The fund is continually recognized in The Foundation’s annual reports and identified to the charitable organizations that receive distributions from the fund.
Of major importance to legal and financial advisors, community foundations provide an attractive, cost-effective alternative for a client who wants to establish a private foundation. The client/donor gets superior tax advantages and freedom from annual reporting requirements but can retain the right to advise on grant recipients from his or her fund.
For more information, contact The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee at 615-321-4939
