Designated Fund
Establishing a designated fund with Illinois Prairie Community Foundation allows you to support the good work of nonprofit organizations long-term. For the nonprofit, the fund creates a permanent income stream from which it can take annual distributions to support its mission or preserve the available dollars for a large expense in the future. Because it is given through IPCF, your gift provides the nonprofit with funding and planned giving support and investment management strategies.
DESIGNATED FUND
A designated fund at Illinois Prairie Community Foundation can help you secure your favorite organization’s financial future so that its mission continues, uninterrupted, even in the face of challenges.
- You will be eligible for the Illinois Gives Act if you create an endowed designated fund. The Act provides a 25% state tax credit for all donations to new or existing endowed funds. Contact us for more information.
- A designated fund allows you to decide on the timing of the distributions from the fund, such as during the organization’s capital campaign or to support a specific program or initiative.
- You can serve as an advisor to the fund to recommend the timing and amount of grants to the supported organization, or you can appoint the IPCF board of directors to carry out this function according to your wishes.
HOW IT WORKS
- You identify an organization that you wish to support through the fund.
- You can select a name for your designated fund, whether it’s your name, your family’s name, name of the organization you’re supporting or something else.
- You make a gift of cash, stock or other assets to Illinois Prairie Community Foundation, and the assets are placed in the designated fund.
- You are eligible for an income tax deduction on assets transferred to the fund upon establishment, and on future transfers you make to the fund.
- You and other advisors to the fund, or the IPCF board of directors, as the case may be, oversee distributions (grants) from the designated fund to your chosen charity according to the parameters laid out in the fund agreement.
- IPCF handles all the administrative details, including managing specific qualifications that you may establish for grant distributions.
HOW DOES IPCF HELP?
IPCF’s board of directors and professional staff are deeply connected to the community and stay fully informed about community needs and the nonprofit organizations that addressing those needs to improve quality of life.
The community foundation can react quickly amid changes. For example, if the organization named in your designated fund ceases to exist and has no legal successors, IPCF can quickly shift grant making from your local fund to an alternate organization named in your designed fund agreement or, if none is named, to other organizations that are serving the same charitable purpose as the organization you originally selected.
SUPPORT YOUR FAVORITE NONPROFIT USING YOUR IRA
If you (and/or you spouse) own one or more IRAs, you may be eligible (depending on your birth year) to make distributions up to a specific amount (we follow current federal IRA guidelines) per person from those accounts directly to your designated fund at IPCF. This is called a Qualified Charitable Distribution or QCD. Not only does a QCD count toward satisfying your Required Minimum Distribution, but you also avoid the income tax on those funds. Furthermore, those assets are no longer part of your estate upon your death, so you can avoid estate taxes too. The IRS permits making QCDs to designed funds.
WE ARE HERE FOR YOU!
Whatever your charitable giving goals may be, our team at IPCF can help. We care about our community as much as you do. Deeply familiar with local nonprofits, we serve as a resource to help you give when, how and to the causes you want. Our tools and back-office administration capabilities make it easy to keep your giving organized and tax-savvy.