Welcome to Kate’s Korner

Kate Masiello Donor Services Officer

Our Donor Services Meetings are on the road and on the job, looking for ways to help make your charitable giving simpler and more informed. One of our most recent meetings was held at the Hull House in Lancaster, where our donors had the opportunity to tour Erie County’s oldest residence. The agenda also gave donors the chance to discuss how we could best remind folks about the IRS prohibition against making grants from Donor Advised Funds to satisfy pledges, sponsor events or purchase tickets to charitable events.

Our Donor Services Committee Chair, Katie Schneider, suggested that we create stickers – much like the return address labels we all receive in the mail from various charities – which donors could affix to pledge cards, alerting a charity of their intent to recommend a distribution from their Donor Advised Fund. Letting a charity know that you intend to make a recommendation from your Donor Advised Fund is perfectly acceptable -- but making a pledge and then using a grant from your Donor Advised Fund to satisfy that pledge is strictly prohibited.

As a result of Katie’s terrific idea, we’ve created two sets of stickers and recently sent them to all Fund Establishers and Advisors to Donor Advised Funds. One set of stickers allows a donor to fill in the amount s/he intends to recommend when making a single grant request; the second set allows a donor to fill in the amount s/he intends to recommend via a series of distributions made over a multi-year period. We’re asking all our donors to affix the appropriate sticker to the pledge forms they receive from charitable organizations soliciting their financial support.

We’re delighted to provide our donors with this quick and easy solution to a very serious problem. Click here to link to a letter from our legal counsel, Thomas R. Hyde, Esq., explaining the law and the penalties that would apply to both donor-advisors and to the Community Foundation if grants were to be made from a Donor Advised Fund to satisfy a pledge.

Our Donor Services Meetings are open to all CFGB donors and present a wonderful chance to share ideas about how we can better serve our donors. These gatherings always include an educational component, so you can learn more about what’s going on in our community. If you prefer to skip the business portion of our meeting and join us for the educational component only, that’s fine too! We had a dozen or so donors join us for the tour of Hull House in Lancaster and they all enjoyed the opportunity to learn about this local treasure that’s listed on the National Register as a significant property under two criteria: architecture and settlement. For more information on Hull House, go to its website.

See more photos on our gallery.

Best Regards,

Kate