Types of Funds 
Each of these options allows your clients to become part of an exciting community of donors.
We recognize that charitable giving is all about people: people with a dream to make this a better community and the talented individuals who help them do it.
Whether your clients are continuing a long tradition of philanthropy or just getting started, give us a call. We are here to help. Please contact us at 845.947.2868 or jeccleston@rocklandgives.org.
Endowment Funds
Endowment Funds are established to provide permanent support to a cause or organization. Because grants are made only from income generated by investing your clients’ gifts – not from principal – you are assured that the fund will be there forever, providing help to our community. The Rockland Community Foundation offers a variety of endowment options to provide permanent support:
- Contributions to the Rockland Community Foundation’s General Discretionary Endowment support the Community Foundations’ evolving grant-making priorities. This gives our community flexibility to meet urgent and changing needs for generations to come.
- Your clients may also establish their own Discretionary Fund. By establishing a discretionary fund in their name or in the name of someone they wish to honor, your clients help meet our community’s changing needs in a very special way by helping to support our evolving grant-making priorities.
- Through a Field of Interest Fund, your clients can ensure permanent support for their favorite charitable interest, such as the environment, the elderly or education. Specific recipients of support will vary through the years as outstanding programs are identified by the Rockland Community Foundation’s knowledgeable staff and board.
- By establishing a Designated Fund, your clients can provide permanent support to one or more of their favorite nonprofit organizations. The fund can be in their names or the name of the organization they choose to support.
- A Donor Advised Fund gives your clients maximum flexibility in their philanthropy, allowing them to recommend grants that support any nonprofit organization in Rockland they choose. The Rockland Community Foundation protects the donor by independently confirming that the grants will carry out charitable purposes.
- Your clients can endow a Scholarship Fund in their name or in the name of a loved one to help students attend college or other qualified educational institutions. They may choose the specific criteria for selecting recipients -- to help students attend a particular school, pursue a given course of study or go on to college from their high school or home town.
An Endowment Fund may be established with an initial gift of $10,000 and may make grant distributions of $100 or more.
Your client can also establish a Supporting Foundation, which allows them to take advantage of significant tax savings through affiliation with the Rockland Community Foundation while maintaining a distinct identity. The board of directors of the supporting foundation controls its investments and may develop and control the grant-making process if desired.
A Supporting Foundation may be established with an initial contribution of $1 Million.
Non-endowed Funds
We also know that there are times when an endowed fund is not the most appropriate vehicle for your clients’ charitable goals. We offer the following options for their current giving needs:
- Our RCF Investor Fund is a donor-advised fund from which both income and principal may be spent. This fund offers a choice of investment blends to complement your clients’ grant-making plans. Any balance remaining in the fund when they pass away may be advised by a successor advisor for one generation; then the funds will support general community needs in the fund name.
A RCF Investor FundSM may be established with an initial gift of $10,000 and may make grant distributions from income or principal of $250 or more.
- Our RCF Donor Checking AccountSM allows your clients to make a tax-deductible gift of appreciated assets or cash (often at year-end) and then direct the Community Foundation to issue checks to their favorite nonprofit organizations at their convenience. Your clients have the ease of making one gift for many purposes while reducing their paperwork.
A RCF Donor Checking AccountSM may be established with an initial gift of $5,000 and may make grant distributions of $100 or more.
Tax Benefits: Many Advantages to Planned Giving
In addition to feeling good about helping the Rockland community, planned giving offers remarkable tax advantages. Some of these have become a little confusing since Congress changed the tax laws in 2001.
The 2001 tax law calls for a gradual reduction in estate tax (or "death" tax) rates and substantial increases in the estate tax exemption until the estate tax goes away completely in the year 2010. However, that law expires the following year, and current law is reinstated . . . unless another Congress votes to extend the new law.
Most professional advisors doubt that the estate tax will ever really go away. One of the most surprising parts of the new law is that when you put it together with New York State law, some people will actually see increases in their estate taxes before they see a decline. For those people whose taxable estates exceed $3 million, the highest rate will increase from last year's 55% to more than 58%!
Moreover, the new estate tax law can work against people’s plans to leave certain amounts to spouse and family with the help of "credit shelter trusts" and the like.
Most estate and trust lawyers are now recommending that, over the next year or two, taxpayers review and update their wills to take advantage of the new laws and to ensure that their assets will be distributed as they wish.
Of course, this also provides an opportunity to include planned giving or update your present charitable plans.
The Rockland Community Foundation can help you make the most effective planned giving decisions, regardless "of whether your gift will ultimately be under the Foundation’s stewardship.
Leveraging Life Insurance: From Many Small Gifts, A Great One
Life insurance is an excellent tool for making a charitable gift for a number of reasons. Through a relatively small annual charitable contribution (the premium), a benefit far in excess of what would otherwise be possible can be provided for charity. This sizeable gift can be made without impairing or diluting the control of a business or other investment. In addition, assets earmarked for family members can be kept intact.
For example, a 50-year-old person committed to giving $5,000 annually for 10 years could leverage the $50,000 into a gift of $300,000 or more. A 50-year-old couple using a survivor life policy could increase the leverage to over $600,000. Even though the cost of a given amount of life insurance increases with age, substantial leverage can still be provided for individuals in their 70s and early 80s.
In addition to creating new life insurance policies for charity, many people donate existing life insurance policies that are no longer needed. Others purchase "wealth replacement" life insurance to replace assets donated during life, for example, to a charitable remainder trust. This ensures that their estate passes whole to their heirs.
Current grants help bridge gaps and build "social capital" between groups that are divided by race, income, education, and geography.
One clear advantage of having funds under the Rockland Community Foundation is the potential of earning more return on investment. All monies under the Foundation are professionally invested and managed by The Strata Group of Citigroup Smith Barney. Monies are essentially pooled together for investment but are individually tracked by each Fund. In the case of the restricted funds, the Fund “owner” has discretion over that fund and receives a statement tracking its performance and balance. The fee is 1.5% for The Strata Group and 1% for the Foundation. The Foundation has available for review by interested parties its Investment Policy Statement.
