Partnering for a Stronger
Community Impact
At the Community Foundation of Monroe County (CFMC), we work closely with both professional advisors and individuals to make charitable giving more impactful. We provide a trusted avenue for charitable giving, strengthening relationships and enhancing services. Our expertise and personalized service help you and your clients achieve philanthropic goals while positively impacting the community. Whether you’re advising clients on charitable giving or are looking to start a fund, CFMC offers the tools and support to navigate every step of the process.
Advantages of Giving Through CFMC
At the Community Foundation of Monroe County, we provide several distinct advantages to both donors and professional advisors. Here’s why people choose to work with us:
Local Impact
We are a local organization with deep roots in the community, ensuring that your gift supports the causes that matter most here.
Expert Guidance and Personalized Service
Our professional program staff provides expert advice on community issues and needs while offering highly personalized service tailored to each individual’s charitable and financial interests, ensuring you make informed decisions about your giving.
Meaningful Investments
Our funds help people invest in the causes they care about most, allowing your charitable dollars to make a significant difference.
Variety of Giving Options
We accept a wide variety of assets, facilitating even the most complex forms of giving to meet your unique goals.
Partnership with Advisors
We work closely with professional advisors to create highly effective charitable giving strategies that align with your clients’ needs.
Tax Advantages
We offer maximum tax benefits for most gifts, ensuring that you and your clients can maximize the impact of every donation.
Enduring Legacy
We build endowment funds that benefit the community forever, helping you or your clients create lasting legacies.
Leadership in the Community
As a community leader, we help coordinate resources and agencies to create positive change, addressing the most pressing local needs.
Why Charitable Giving with CFMC?
Philanthropy goes beyond just giving—it’s about creating lasting change and building meaningful relationships. By partnering with CFMC, professional advisors gain access to flexible giving options and expert guidance on community needs. This ensures that your clients’ charitable gifts are making the most significant impact. From assisting clients in creating personalized funds to offering tax-efficient strategies like Qualified Charitable Distributions (QCDs), we tailor our approach to meet their specific philanthropic and financial interests.
How to Start
Your Own Fund
Starting a fund with the Community Foundation of Monroe County is a simple and rewarding way to ensure your philanthropic vision becomes a reality. Whether you’re looking to support a specific cause, leave a legacy, or make a memorial gift, we provide the tools and guidance to help you achieve your charitable goals.
How Qualified Charitable
Distributions (QCDs) Work
For individuals aged 70½ or older, Qualified Charitable Distributions (QCDs) offer a simple and tax-efficient way to give. By transferring up to $100,000 annually from an IRA directly to CFMC, your clients can make a significant charitable impact without paying taxes on the distribution. If they are married, each spouse can transfer up to $100,000 annually from their individual IRAs.
Maximize Charitable Giving: QCDs can be placed into a fund in your client’s name, the name of their family, or in honor of a person or organization they choose.
Enduring Community Impact: Gifts can be placed into an endowment fund, which is invested to grow over time and generate grants to meet community needs indefinitely.
No Federal Income Tax: The transaction incurs no federal income tax, and the assets are no longer part of the estate for tax purposes.
Satisfy Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs): QCDs can also count toward your client’s RMD requirement, helping them meet financial obligations while making a meaningful gift.
Get Personalized Service
At CFMC, we work with you to establish the best charitable giving vehicle for your client. Whether they want to address changing community needs, support a specific cause, or create a legacy, we’ll help craft the perfect solution. By giving during their lifetime, your clients can experience the joy of philanthropy while seeing the difference their gift is making in the community.
Tax Benefits and
Estate Planning
QCDs offer a unique advantage for larger estates that face high estate taxes. By donating directly from an IRA, your clients can avoid the taxes that would otherwise apply to their heirs. Instead of leaving their children a reduced inheritance due to estate and income taxes, they can choose to give their IRA assets to CFMC tax-free and create a lasting legacy.
Reduced Estate Tax Burden: QCDs can help reduce the taxable estate and avoid the income tax burden on heirs.
Leave a Legacy: Your clients can direct their IRA gifts to causes they care about most, creating an enduring impact in the community.
Charitable Estate Planning:
Plan Ahead for Future Giving
Charitable estate planning provides an opportunity to integrate philanthropy into long-term financial and estate strategies, helping your clients align their charitable goals with their legacy. CFMC can help your clients establish flexible giving plans that can evolve with their values over time, ensuring their charitable intentions are met regardless of future changes.
For clients who wish to leave bequests to multiple charitable organizations, but whose choice of beneficiaries might change, CFMC offers a streamlined approach. Instead of constantly updating the trust document to reflect new or changing charities, clients can name a CFMC fund as a beneficiary. This allows them to specify a percentage of their estate to be divided among various charities, with the flexibility to adjust the fund distribution as their interests evolve—without needing to amend the entire estate plan.
Flexible and Lasting Impact: Clients can make ongoing changes to charitable beneficiaries through CFMC without frequent legal amendments.
Simplified Process for Your Clients: By naming CFMC as the beneficiary of their estate plan, clients ensure that their wishes are honored while simplifying the process for future generations.
No Federal Income Tax: The transaction incurs no federal income tax, and the assets are no longer part of the estate for tax purposes.
Maximize Philanthropic Goals: Our team works with clients to create customized charitable plans that provide lasting community impact while minimizing tax obligations.
“Choosing Charity Over Tax”
“We saved very carefully for so many years. In fact, we wound up with more than we needed during our retirement,” said Anna. “We had even set aside assets for our children—enough to give them a nice inheritance when we pass on.” Instead of leaving their children a reduced percentage of their retirement assets due to estate and heirs’ income taxes, Anna and her husband Stephen decided to transfer 100% of these funds to the Community Foundation of Monroe County.
CFMC received their gift, tax-free, and helped them establish a family Field of Interest Fund. “It feels good to make this gift during our lifetime,” said Stephen. “We enjoy seeing the difference our gift is making to some key health issues in our community.”
Contact Us
To learn more about how the Community Foundation of Monroe County can help with charitable giving and fund establishment, contact us today. We are here to answer any questions and assist with all necessary paperwork.
