Give, Grow, Grant – New Ways to Improve Your Community

The Community Foundation of Morgan County (CFMC) recently updated our donation page to reflect how a community foundation supports our community. We call it Give, Grow, Grant.

The new give page has a donate button and explains the variety of gifts CFMC can accept for the funds we manage and us. For those donors who want to give an investment, CFMC can take cash, investment securities, IRA-required distributions, and Real Estate. These gifts give the donor a tax incentive for the year they give the gift. If a person or couple files an itemized tax return in 2022, charitable contribution rules have reverted to no more than 60% of your adjusted gross income (AGI) for cash. The limit is 30% of AGI for non-cash contributions (for example, donating shares of stock). For instance, a couple with an AGI of $200,000 can deduct up to $120,000 of cash donations to charity each year. But any charitable donations above those amounts are not eligible for a tax deduction.

For donors who want to create a legacy, we also accept gifts of bequests, life insurance policies, IRAs, and trust funds. When a donor leaves this world and wants to impact their passions after they’re gone, CFMC can help them plan that legacy. While the tax incentive for those gifts doesn’t help the donor now, it does help their heirs with tax burdens.

While giving can be complicated, the benefit of a community foundation is the growth they build from endowment proceeds. When a donor gives to an endowment, those funds are invested and built-in perpetuity. Just like a person’s personal investments, CFMC can use donor dollars to create a steady, sustainable cash flow for ongoing future community impact. Endowment funds help support nonprofit organizations’ operating expenses or programming to ensure our community has the resources it needs to prosper.

The result of a donor’s gift is using the proceeds to support Morgan County. Annually, CFMC calculates a 4.5% distribution rate of the separate endowment funds, and those dollars support the fund’s purpose.  For CFMC, our 4.5% distribution rate funds Impact, Thrive, and Capacity grants. For the endowments we manage for others, their distribution goes to support the ongoing operations of our local nonprofits, a field of interest based on the donor’s passion, or as a grant based on fundholder recommendations. The possibilities of what we can do for our community through giving, growing, and granting are endless.

Check out our new “Make an Impact” page to see how donors can support their charitable passions.  make-an-impact