PRIVATE FOUNDATION SERVICES

Private (family or independent) foundations can find a home at the Community Foundation of Shelby County.  We can assist with the challenges you face, freeing you to focus on the reasons you established a foundation…the meaningful, effective and enjoyable side of giving.

Adding a Donor Advised or Designated Use Fund
You can establish a secondary fund to handle an aspect of your grantmaking, while maintaining the autonomy of your private foundation.   Gifts to a charitable fund at the Community Foundation can help you meet your minimum distribution requirements of your private foundation, assist with anonymous grants, administer a work-intensive scholarship program, or achieve higher deductibility levels for larger contributions.

Transferring a Private Foundation
When a private foundation is no longer workable or desirable, assets may be transferred into a charitable fund.  As a public charity, the Community Foundation has no minimum distribution requirements, pays no excise taxes, nor needs to comply with many of the rules imposed upon private foundations…yet a charitable fund has much of the same ‘feel’ of a private foundation.  We can assist you with the process to terminate your private foundation and establish a fund to continue supporting those organizations, causes or communities you favor.

Supporting Organization
A supporting organization is a unique blend of a private and public foundation.  Just like a private foundation, it has its own Federal Identification Number (EIN) and applies for its own 501(c)(3) tax status.  By connecting to the Community Foundation, it receives our administrative services, its contributions are deductible to the higher public foundation levels and it is free of the private foundation minimum payout and many compliance rules. Its board must be comprised of a majority of individuals appointed by the Community Foundation board, but family members or their representatives may also serve.  The minimum size for a supporting organization is $2 million or the intent to reach $2 million within a period of time.