For more than 100 years, the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo has worked alongside attorneys, certified public accountants and financial professionals to create customized solutions with high-level client service that structure giving and best achieve their clients’ charitable goals. The Community Foundation offers charitable giving vehicles to meet a wide range of clients’ needs. In many cases, a single client can benefit from setting up multiple funds of different types.
Below is a quick overview of the most popular fund types.
Donor Advised Fund
A Donor Advised Fund enables your client to establish a fund for charitable giving. Your client makes tax-deductible contributions of cash, stock or other highly-appreciated assets to the fund, and then recommends grants to their favorite charities.
Changing Needs Fund
Since 1919, the Community Foundation has had its finger on the pulse of the community’s most pressing issues. A Changing Needs Fund gives your client the opportunity to support the changing needs of our community over time. One of the biggest benefits of the Community Foundation is its perpetual structure that allows clients and their families to offer support to nonprofits that evolves over time as priorities in the region shift.
Field of Interest Fund
Clients who want to focus their giving on specific areas of community need (such as racial equity, education, environment, or the arts) can set up a Field of Interest Fund to establish parameters for grant making under the ongoing guidance of the Community Foundation’s Board of Directors.
Designated Fund
A Designated Fund allows a client to direct their giving to a specific nonprofit organization or purpose. Over time, the Community Foundation’s team manages the distributions from the fund according to the terms established by your client.
Organization Fund
For those organizations committed to providing services over a long period of time – and require a sustainable source of funding to do so – the Community Foundation provides an excellent option for endowment management. Our focus is ensuring continuity of funding for organizations that are committed to providing services over a long period of time and require predictable sources of income to do so. An Organization Fund provides flexible distribution options, administrative and compliance support, and planned giving resources.
Scholarship Fund
Individuals, families and organizations commonly establish a scholarship to honor or memorialize someone important to them, to help students like them, or simply to provide children with an opportunity for an education they might not be able to afford otherwise. Clients choose the Community Foundation to manage their Scholarship Fund because it has the largest scholarship program in Western New York with a robust infrastructure and support network.
We look forward to working together to discover the type of fund(s) at the Community Foundation that support each client’s unique charitable goals.