New Head of Community Foundation Named

Friday, July 31st, 2009

Over the years, Lynne Berry has been very much involved with several philanthropic groups.  Now, she has been named as the Huntsville/Madison County Community Foundation’s first executive director.  This means she’s heading an organization that’s serving all nonprofits.  She said, “There’s a lot of challenges and work in this new job but I have the opportunity to be in an umbrella organization to benefit all nonprofits and I like to learn new things.”

One of the first jobs of Berry is to educate the people about all benefits (especially tax) as well as give and educate potential donors about other community needs that would be good for them.  Community foundations can work with other donors to create funds or meet a specific community need.  These funds can either be given immediately, pooled with others, or held indefinitely.

The foundation’s chairman, Chris Russell, said that the role of the foundation is to make sure that people find it easier to make a donation or charitable gift.  Russell, who work with Huntsville Wachovia Bank in wealth management said, “There’s a difference in planned giving and annual giving.  For planned giving, what we’re focusing on has always been to raise the bar and look for more opportunities.”

Tags: charitable gift, Chris Russell, community foundation, donors, Lynne Berry, nonprofits, Planned Giving
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Ally of Small Non-profits

Friday, July 3rd, 2009

A small non-profit foundation needs to have a program for planned giving.  Here are some steps that you need to take for this program:

• *Draft a board meeting agenda.
• *Request for a meeting with the bank president.
• *Meet with the finance committee and sign thank-you letters.
• *Write, edit, or proofread the newsletter and send it to the post office.

You can do all these or you can just call a community foundation.  These community foundations need to strengthen philanthropy inside their own geographic areas.  They also provide a range of services to other partner non-profits including endowment management, technical assistance, grants, and consultation of planned management.

Oftentimes, a relationship would begin when your non-profit places an endowment.  Community foundations would pool the funds and invest it in various investments.  Non-profit endowments would range from $5,000-$25,000.

There are many variables and possibilities with planned giving.  Since small non-profits don’t even know where they would begin to seek for donors, these community foundations have numerous staff with legal expertise to help them.  And when they have identified a donor who’s interested to support their endowment, the community foundation would be more than willing to work with them and find the best vehicle to grow their funds.

Tags: community foundation, donor, endowment, non-profit foundation, Planned Giving
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