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You Can Make a Difference
Since 1991, area residents have been turning to the Noble County
Community Foundation, Inc. to make their philanthropic giving as
effective as possible. We are a public charity serving thousands of
people who share a common concern—improving the quality of life in
Noble County.
Individuals, families, businesses and organizations create
permanent charitable funds, known as endowment funds, that help our
region meet the challenges of changing times. The foundation invests
and administers these funds. We then use the distributions to award
several hundred-thousand dollars in grants each year to many of the
humanitarian, educational and cultural organizations in this
remarkable region we call home.
Charitable giving.
It’s an investment in our community’s future.
You’ve worked hard to achieve your goals and to support the causes
and institutions you believe in. Charitable giving is an important
part of your life. As someone who knows the value of giving, you want
to be assured that your gifts will meet vital needs and improve our
community.
You want to know your gifts will achieve positive results and, of
course, maximize your tax deductions. You may want to involve your
family in your giving. You want a tasteful level of recognition—or
perhaps you want anonymity.
But most of all, you want an easy and flexible way to accomplish
your objectives.
There is a simple way for you to make a difference and leave a
lasting legacy in our community. You can make a difference for good, a
difference forever—and that’s by establishing a fund with us.
What’s a “community” foundation?
We’re a community foundation, a tax-exempt public charity that
enables people like you to establish charitable funds. Your fund will
be commingled with our other funds and managed professionally. Its
assets will grow over time. You and your family and colleagues are
encouraged to continue giving to the fund to help it grow even more.
Grants will be awarded from your fund to support local nonprofit
organizations, in accordance with your interests.
Like all community foundations, we are overseen by a volunteer
board of leading citizens and run by professionals with expertise in
knowing our community’s needs. We go beyond simply making grants that
advance charitable activities: we also identify current and emerging
issues, stimulate resources to address those needs and help our region
prepare for the future.
It’s for these reasons that community foundations represent one of
the fastest growing areas of philanthropy. When charitably minded
people like you seek suitable ways to give, we can help you make a
difference.
How does it work?
The community foundation idea is simple: Anyone may use it to give
something back to the community.
Assets that you donate to the foundation create one of several
types of funds to support your charitable goals. We offer you a full
menu of planned giving options to tailor your gift.
You can create a fund in honor of someone you love or to celebrate
a special event. You can direct your gift broadly or narrowly to
issues you care about or to wherever the needs are greatest. However
you give, your gift can change lives—today and in the future.
We use professionals to invest and manage our assets. Our board is
made up of local citizens who know the community. And our staff can
help you create the gift that makes the difference you want.
We offer you power and flexibility in charitable giving without the
paperwork, time and expenses associated with running your own private
foundation. We can help you set up a fund that will maximize both your
tax advantages and your impact in the community—now and forever.
Here are some ways we can help you:
- Managing the fund, overseeing its investment and maintaining tax
records
- Filing tax returns related to a fund and providing an
independent audit
- Providing the services of experienced grantmakers who know the
community, its needs and its organizations
Ensuring that grants are always awarded in the name of
your fund
Issuing regular financial reports detailing the status of
the fund
How do I create a fund?
1. Decide When to Give
You can create your fund now, establish it in your will, or create
it through a trust arrangement that benefits your family as well as
charity. You may give in honor of an anniversary, to celebrate a
special event or to support a cause. Tax deductions are earned at the
time of your gift, while grants awarded from your fund will continue
into the future.
2. Decide What to Give
Almost any kind of asset can be used to start your fund, such as
cash, publicly traded securities, closely held stock, interests in
limited partnerships, real estate, life insurance, tangible personal
property and private foundation assets. We can also discuss other
options with you, such as bequests, charitable remainder unitrusts,
charitable remainder annuity trusts, charitable lead trusts, pooled
income funds, charitable gift annuities, life income and deferred
charitable gift annuities.
3. Choose the Name for Your Fund
Most of our funds are named for the donor or the donor’s family or
as a memorial to someone special. Every grant from the fund will carry
this name. If you prefer anonymity, you may choose a name that
reflects your fund’s charitable purposes.
4. Choose a Type of Fund
We offer a variety of funds that are flexible to meet our donors’
different charitable interests:
Unrestricted Funds offer the broadest giving option,
allowing grants to be made wherever our professional staff
determines our community’s needs are the greatest.
Field-of-Interest Funds create grants that meet needs in
a particular field or geographic area that is of interest to you.
Donor-Advised Funds enable you to periodically recommend
specific organizations to receive grants.
Scholarship Funds help students pursue academic goals.
You may define guidelines for candidacy, the advisory committee, the
school and the award itself.
Designated Funds let you support specific organizations
while we make sure that grants to these groups remain relevant over
time and responsive to changing circumstances.
Organizational Endowment Funds are established by
nonprofit organizations to provide income to them. We handle all
administrative and investment responsibilities, freeing the
organization to pursue its charitable mission.
Seven Steps to Easy Philanthropy
1. Discuss your overall philanthropic goals with your family
members and legal or tax advisors.
2. Decide how much you can afford to give.
3. Determine the causes/organizations that will use your donations to
meet the goals you support.
4. Meet with us to discuss your plan. Ask questions, explore the
different gift vehicles available to you and review the documents
needed to implement your plan.
5. Share the documents with your family and your professional
advisors.
6. Transfer your gift to us.
7. Review our confirmation of your completed gift and the ongoing
progress of grants that are awarded from your fund.
Why choose us? We Know Our Community
When you choose to invest in the future of our community, you want
to work with someone who knows the territory. The broad cross-section
of leaders who guide our work lends valuable insight that will help
your charitable giving achieve maximum results.
We Help You Achieve Superior Tax Benefits
Since the IRS considers us a public charity, contributions are
eligible for the highest available tax deductions. In most cases,
these tax benefits outweigh using your assets to establish your own
private foundation.
We Make Set-Up and Administration Easy
Establishing a fund can be done in less time than it takes to open
a bank account. We take care of all the administrative and grantmaking
activities, eliminating the need for you to set up a separate
institution, formulate policies, file innumerable forms and monitor
the status of grant recipients. We save you precious time and money.
We Share Your Interests
We are here to help you become connected to the issues you care
about most. Your charitable interests and priorities are important to
us because committed, caring citizens are so important to our
community’s well-being.
We Care About the Future
By setting up a fund, you have the ideal opportunity to create a
legacy for yourself and for our area.
Go ahead. Make a difference.
By establishing a fund with us, you’ll know your gifts are in good
hands. Our staff can help you identify where your gifts will best
benefit the community.
The result is a lasting legacy that addresses the needs of today and
the challenges of tomorrow, establishes a tradition of philanthropy
and ensures that your fund will develop community capital to improve
the quality of life now and well into the future.
We are your premier local source for comprehensive
charitable gift planning. To learn more about establishing a fund,
please contact us.
What do I do now?
Contact our foundation staff. You may know precisely which
organizations you want to support or you may not. In either case, we
can help you shape a grant making program that fits your needs and
carries out your charitable intent forever. Let us show you just how
easy, flexible and effective your charitable giving can be, and how
you can make a difference.
Ways To Create
A Fund and Receive Income For Life
Fixed Income For Life
You have worked hard. Now you find yourself with a comfortable
accumulation of assets. You would like an assured income for
life and want to see that your community continues to benefit from
your wealth after you are gone.
You establish an Annuity Trust, with the remainder
going to a charitable fund in your name which may reduce your income
taxes for up to six years. You and perhaps a survivor will
receive an income for life, the same amount each year. Your
estate taxes will be reduced and you will endow a permanent charitable
fund in your name.
Variable Life Income Trust
You would like a regular income during your retirement, but you are
concerned about inflation. A fixed income might buy less and less, and
you would like a chance to have the income grow over the years.
What you want is a Unitrust. This allows you to
specify a percentage of your trust's assets paid to you each year for
life, rather than a fixed dollar amount. Should your
assets grow, your income will grow as well.
Charitable Lead or "Wait-a-While" Trust
You have a sizable estate, one that you would like to see take care of
not only your children, but your grandchildren as well. But you
worry about what will be left for them after the big bite you know
estate taxes will take.
Setting up a Charitable Lead Trust can take care of
your philanthropic interests and more. You donate part of your
estate to a trust now, and the income goes to your fund in the
community foundation for a designated number of years. When the
trust ends, the assets are passed on to your designated beneficiaries.
This will reduce your estate taxes. Your fund supports charity
during all those in-between years, and your beneficiaries receive much
more than they would have otherwise. Certain lead trusts also
make it possible to pass value to future generations at greatly
reduced tax levels.
Other Ways We Can Help
Transfer Your Foundation Into Ours
You are a trustee of a private foundation. A number of
issues make you concerned about the future of the organization.
Increasing tax regulations and decreasing benefits are also proving a
major frustration.
By transferring your foundation into ours, you can be
assured that good, intelligent grant making will continue in the name
of your foundation for generations to come. And, because we are
a public charity, the excise taxes levied against private foundations
are no longer applicable. We also take care of all the paperwork
demanded by the government. What you are left with is the
comfort of knowing that your foundation's work will continue in
perpetuity as intended.
Partial Transfer of Your Private Foundation's Income
Again, you are a trustee of a private foundation, but are not ready to
transfer all of the foundation's assets into the Community Foundation.
You would, however, like to begin a relationship.
You set up a fund in the Community Foundation, most
likely in the name of your organization, and arrange for part or all
of the year's current income to be contributed to your fund.
This arrangement can continue indefinitely, allowing the trustees a
chance to become familiar with us until they are ready to take full
advantage of the Community Foundation services.
Another possibility is that a private or family
foundation with either a small or nonexistent staff may have
difficulty administering a full grant making program.
Again, the combined expertise of our staff can prove
to be an invaluable asset to your foundation. With our
assistance in identifying important community needs, you can be
certain that your grants will have the kind of impact originally
envisioned.
How We Can Help Corporations
Supporting standard charities, being a good corporate citizen, and
giving to the projects in which top corporate officers are involved
are straightforward tasks to accomplish. But the blizzard of
appeals you receive from all the other charities makes a thoughtful
corporate giving program seem unattainable.
We can help make things more manageable. You
split your corporate giving in two: one portion stays with the
corporation to cover those things you know must fund; the other
portion is transferred to a fund you create in the Community
Foundation. Our staff will sift through the many requests you
receive and develop a giving program that will both reflect and credit
the corporation. We can be especially helpful in administering
corporate scholarship programs. We help identify recipients,
track their progress in school and take care of all IRS requirements.
Ways To Fuel Your
Fund
Cash
When you give to a charity, you
give cash. You write out your check and that is that.
Couldn't be a better way. . . right?
Here's one. You establish a fund in your name
with the community foundation and write out a check to it whenever you
can afford to. The fund has great flexibility and gives you
immediate and maximum tax deductibility. Only the income
generated by the money you contribute needs to be distributed.
Or, you can ask that we periodically make charitable distributions in
your name. We provide you with the necessary documentation of
your gift to the community foundation for your annual report to the
Internal Revenue Service.
Securities
You have realized that with your
appreciated securities, you can be more philanthropic than you thought
possible. But to attempt to use your stocks or bonds for your
charitable gifting could be difficult.
Instead, you donate your
securities to a fund in your name, receiving the maximum tax deduction
for their full market value. And if the amount is larger than
you can use in one year, you can carry the surplus as deduction over
the next five years. The charities you support will all receive
cash. So everyone benefits.
Will or Living
Trust
You are ironing out the details
of a new will or creating your first living trust. You have
taken care of all the essential details, assigned sentimental
possessions, and provided for relatives. What you would also
like to do is leave something behind that could make a difference in
the lives of others.
You provide that any
remaining assets go to a charitable fund in your name. You can
let us know now, if you like, and we would appreciate the opportunity
to honor and thank you or you can keep your plans private.
Either way, your fund will forever continue to do good work in your
name, a living symbol of your caring and generosity. It will
also significantly reduce the taxes otherwise payable by your estate.
Life Insurance
You have been paying premiums on
life insurance for years. and now the protection it offered
earlier is really no longer needed. The policies have some
value, and you would like your community to benefit.
You donate the policies to a
fund in your name. You receive an immediate tax deduction,
usually in an amount close to the cash surrender value. The fund
will continue to grow over time, and much good will be done in your
name.
Gifts From An
Estate Or Trust
As the executor or trustee of a
will, you are to allocate a certain amount of money to charity.
But either the organizations and amounts are not named, or the task of
carrying out the charitable provisions has provided burdensome.
You set up a charitable fund
with us in the name of the person who died, and arrange to have the
charitable portion of the estate paid to the fund, with the approval
of the court if necessary. Once accepted, the fund would be
fully qualified to receive its charitable provisions. We have
handled many complex bequests to charity.
Real Property
You own residential or commercial
real estate which has grown substantially in value. Now, you are
thinking about using the value of his real estate to further your
philanthropic goals.
You donate all or part of
the ownership of your real estate to the community foundation.
After carefully evaluating your particular property, the community
foundation will advise you on how best to contribute the property.
Either the income or sale proceeds from the property establish a
permanent fund.
Business
Interests
You own a substantial interest in
a privately held business. Perhaps this is one of your larger assets.
You are interested in converting some or all of those assets to
support philanthropic purposes.
Your contribute part or all
of your ownership. The community foundation sells this ownership back
to the business, to a family member or to another purchaser. The
proceeds from the sale create a permanent fund. The community
foundation helps evaluate the property, qualify the sale and focus
your philanthropic goals.
Noble County Community Foundation, Inc.
1599 Lincolnway South, Ligonier IN 46767
Phone: 260-894-3335 Fax: 260-894-9020
Email: nccf@ligtel.com
Website: www.NobleCounty.org
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