News for Professional Advisors

Many of your clients know they want to include charitable giving in their estate plans, but they might still be deciding which organizations they want to support or how they want their giving structured. 

Some also might want to support several nonprofits or avoid a large lump-sum gift being distributed all at once.

A deferred fund at the Community Foundation provides you with a simple way to help those clients. 

How it works

During their lifetime, your client can establish a deferred fund at the Foundation, documenting the organizations or causes they would like to support, or allowing their children to advise from the fund. 

There is no fee to establish the fund as part of the planning process. Fees are only assessed if and when assets are received through the estate. 

Instead of naming individual charities in their estate documents, the client names their deferred fund at the Community Foundation as the sole charitable beneficiary in their will, trust or as a beneficiary designation. 

When the estate is settled, those assets are used to create the charitable fund at the Foundation.

Many clients appreciate that this structure allows their charitable giving to continue over time. 
In many cases, estate gifts establish an endowment that supports the nonprofits the client selected year after year, creating a lasting source of support. If preferred, the fund can also distribute a portion of the assets as a one-time grant or over a defined period of time.

As a client’s charitable interests evolve, their instructions with the Community Foundation can be updated without requiring changes to their estate documents.

For those advising charitable clients

For those advising charitable clients - whether helping update a beneficiary designation or drafting a full estate plan - this structure provides a practical and simple way to incorporate philanthropy into an estate plan while keeping the estate documents themselves simple. 

Call us today to find out more.