A Donor Advised Fund is an innovative charitable gifting financial product affording charitably inclined individuals, corporations and organizations some very compelling advantages versus other direct gift giving alternatives.
Donor Advise Funds can be very advantageous and efficacious for many situations.
A Donor Advised Fund is typically structured as a public charity.
A Donor Advised Fund simplifies charitable gifting.
A Donor Advised Fund is more cost effective and far less cumbersome than private foundations.
The purpose of a Donor Advised Fund is to promote philanthropy by seeking charitable contributions that can be used to support qualified organizations as selected by the donor.
Donors can make contributions of cash, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, closely held securities, certain private and restricted securities and dividend reinvestment programs to a Donor Advised Fund.
Donor Advised Funds typically have initial minimum contributions of $10,000, with increments of $1000 thereafter.
ALL contributions to a donor advised fund are irrevocable.
Donors avoid capital gains, if any, on all contributed assets and receive an immediate charitable deduction for contributions to a Donor Advised Fund.
For itemized deductions users, a cash contribution to the fund is limited to 50% of adjusted gross income for any one year. The portion of a charitable deduction not used because of the limit may be carried forward and used for up to five years.
For itemized deductions users, a securities contribution to the fund is limited to 30% of adjusted gross income for any one year. The portion of a charitable deduction not used because of the limit may be carried forward and used for up to five years.
For corporate deduction users, contributions to the fund is limited to 10% of adjusted gross income for any one year, with special calculations.
Contributions are invested in donor's choice of investment accounts within mutual funds for: growth, asset allocation, and/or income.
Donated assets into donor advised funds have the ability to appreciate in value.
All funds are managed by professional money managers.
Donor advises the fund regarding which specific charities, churches, synagogues, schools, universities, and/or not-for-profit organizations eventually receive distributions from donor's portion of the fund.
The recommended minimum distribution amount to an individual charity or not-for-profit organization is $250.
Donor advises the fund when, and how much to distribute to his/her selected charities or not-for-profit organization(s) etc.
Donations to Donor Advised Funds are generally tax deductible in the year in which they are received.
Any IRS approved charity, not-for-profit, 501(c) 3 organization can be selected to receive a donor's advised distributions.
Current tax deductible contributions to the fund can be immediate; yet, donor advised distributions can be immediate or deferred to some future date.
Donor advised distributions from the fund can be in donor's name.
-
Donor advised distributions from the fund can be anonymous.
Donor has the ability to easily recommend grants to multiple charitable recipients.
The Donor Advised Fund maintains all the records, reviews donor's recommended distribution to assure that the distributions qualify for federal tax deduction, sends quarterly statements, and distributes assets to the charities from the donor's contributions.
Effectively, via a donor advised fund one can achieve almost all the goals of a private foundation, with much less expense, greater privacy and enhanced tax-saving opportunities.
Donor Advised Funds can be established now, with the intent of distributing the grants at some future date.
Accounts for corporations are available and can be used to support their local community.
There are no costs to charitable organizations named as distribution recipients.
If your organization is a not-for-profit organization, your organization can be the named an organization to receive distribution(s). Charitable organizations simply have to make their constituency aware of the existence of the Donor Advised Funds and ask their donors to name them as the recipient.
Donors receive quarterly statements on accounts, and confirmations are sent to donor upon receipt of donation.
Successors can be named to carry on the charitable gifting tradition.
