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What Kinds of Funds Can Donors (Individuals, Couples, Families, Businesses,
Nonprofit Organizations, etc.) Create?
Donors may specify the general or specific purpose(s) of their gifts in keeping with
their
charitable goals and interests, or contributions may be undesignated to be used by the Berrien Community Foundation where most needed. Either way, contributions to
our communities made through the Berrien Community Foundation will have a lasting impact.
Donors may create the following fund types:
UNDESIGNATED
FUNDS
These enable the Foundation to respond to changing community needs and
emergencies, support the creation of innovative responses to community
challenges, and enhance the quality of community life. Donors place no restrictions on how these funds are to be used, leaving those
decisions to the Board of Trustees.
FIELD OF INTEREST FUNDS
These support a broad area of your concern, such as
education, the arts, youth services, and those with special needs. The Foundation then makes grants to the most appropriate programs or organizations within the field of interest
the donors have specified.
DONOR ADVISED FUNDS
Donors (individuals, couples, families, groups, businesses) create advised
funds to participate in and maintain flexibility in fund distributions.
Through these funds, donors may actively participate in grantmaking by
making grant recommendations for organizations.
SCHOLARSHIP FUNDS
Donors established these funds to help students
achieve their educational goals. Committees made up of a cross
section of qualified individuals, objective criteria, and a
selection process using these criteria are approved by the Board of
Trustees. No new
scholarship funds are being accepted at this time. Advised funds are
highly recommended as an alternative.
ORGANIZATION FUNDS (Designated)
Nonprofit organizations
(e.g., typical nonprofit, schools, school foundations, units of
govt., religious organizations) establish endowment and other funds to provide for future funding of
their organizations. A donor(s) may establish a fund where a specific
nonprofit is designated to receive grants. The Foundation is then
responsible for the fund from that point with no additional
recommendations from the donor(s). For legacy endowment funds, a
donor(s) establishes a fund that is funded via an estate gift and
identifies several nonprofits to receive grants each year from the
fund. The Foundation is then responsible for the fund from that
point with no additional recommendations from the donor(s) families
and/or related parties. For all types described above, the Berrien
Community Foundation has legal control and ownership, and the funds are the
assets of the Foundation.
If a nonprofit organization connected to a fund at the Foundation
ceases to exist, the Foundation is obligated by various regulations
to maintain the fund, provide grants
for
as similar charitable purposes as the original fund,
and for an endowment fund use only a certain percentage of the
endowment (historically 5% annually) for these grants.
For more
information, contact
Nanette Keiser,
Ed.D., President
NanetteKeiser@BerrienCommunity.org
269-983-3486 or 269-983-3304, ext. 1
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