Funds that fit your charitable intentions and community’s needs
The flexibility of a Community Foundation helps make giving meaningful. Whether you want to help assist seniors or youth, conquer diseases or help families in need, we can be of real service. You can choose or combine any of our four types of funds to meet your charitable intentions.
In addition to the four major funds identified above, the Maple Ridge Community Foundation offers additional ways to assist you in fulfilling your charitable intentions. Some examples include:
MAJOR FUNDS
Community Fund
You may have visited your lawyer or financial advisor with a simple request about how to help your community. You feel it’s important to give something back to ensure the continued vitality of Maple Ridge. At the Maple Ridge Community Foundation, we provide a mechanism to fulfill those generous wishes.
Under the guidance of our Board of Directors, we investigate, define and design solutions to our community’s most pressing issues. The income earned by the unrestricted funds (the Community Endowment Fund) provides discretionary investment capital to address long-term solutions; to respond to new and emerging needs; to build families and promote the arts; to educate, inform and inspire. As conditions change, so do our grants.
Our Board of Directors has many years of combined experience in applying philanthropy at the community level. By directing your gift to the Community Endowment Fund, you rest assured that your donation will always be used to meet vital needs, improve the quality of life in Maple Ridge and respond accordingly as the community’s needs evolve.
Field-of-Interest Fund
Have you ever caught yourself saying, “When I grew up things were simple. There weren’t so many issues – the environment was cleaner, kids didn’t have so many tough choices, diseases didn’t appear to be so rampant, the arts were just beginning to flourish and hadn’t yet met hard times – what can I do? I’d like to help if I could.” Well guess what? You can help!
Individuals can create a Field-of-Interest Fund and name the cause closest to their hearts – be it environmental, social, health, education or cultural. The Maple Ridge Community Foundation then goes to work, researching and preparing a state-of-the-art grant spending plan for that specific field of interest. The Community Foundation’s Grants Committee and Board of Directors evaluate proposed grants against your charitable intentions and any other fund guidelines. A report from the grant recipient upon the completion of the project carefully monitors the results.
The real advantage of Field-of-Interest Funds is that they keep up with the times. For example, we will always have young people to be concerned about, but today’s youth problems were not around 30 years ago and neither were the charities that address their needs. Many of tomorrow’s issues can not even be guessed at today. Rather than locking your fund into a few specific charities that may be good today (but gone tomorrow), the Maple Ridge Community Foundation places your Field-of-Interest Fund grants in the best hands at the right time, in perpetuity.
Donor Advised Fund
Today’s families face a myriad of charitable requests. Just managing the correspondence and cheque writing can overwhelm the charitable impulse. Plus, there is no place to hide from all those well-intentioned solicitations. That’s exactly why the Maple Ridge Community Foundation created the Donor Advised Fund.
How does it work? You can refer requests to us, give anonymously or suggest we make payments to any charity of your choice, so long as proposed grants fit within the charitable purposes of our organization. Then we take care of all the clerical chores.
While your recommendations cannot be legally binding (our Board of Directors has final say pursuant to Canada Revenue Agency requirements), we take your suggestions very seriously. We protect you by making sure the charity is above-board and actively serving the public. Advised funds allow living donors to professionalize their charitable giving without the annoyances entailed in running a private foundation.
Donor Designated Fund
Sometimes individuals like certain charities to benefit from their fund. Or, they may wish to support a fledgling charity but are not quite sure it’s ready to manage an endowment fund. What will happen to a direct gift if the charity goes out of business?
A Donor Designated Fund in the Maple Ridge Community Foundation can solve all these worries. We take care of the investment, and pay the fund’s income to the charities named by the donor. If the unexpected should occur, and a charity ceases operation or significantly changes its focus, or the purpose it serves becomes obsolete, we have the ability to redirect your funds to a similar charity without losing time or depleting the fund. Our Board of Directors will carefully review the facts before making such a change.
MINOR FUNDS
Scholarship Fund
This fund allows you to set up a scholarship fund in your own name or in honour of an individual to ensure that deserving young citizens can get an education or training they might not otherwise receive. These scholarships can be for any level of education or training that you specify.
Group Memorial Fund
What better way to preserve the memory of a loved-one or dear and valued friend than by setting up a fund in the name of the person who has passed? Other friends and corporations who valued that person can also be asked to contribute to the fund. The income from this fund can be given to a charitable organization or the fund may be dedicated to a field of interest which would have pleased that person or left as an unrestricted memorial fund.
Administration Fund
You might choose to provide direct gifts to the Maple Ridge Community Foundation itself. The Community Endowment Fund is an endowment created for just such gifts. The income from this fund is used to offset the Community Foundation’s operating costs, thereby maximizing grants payout. In addition, the Community Foundation also accepts direct donations to its operating expenses.
Pass-through Fund
If you prefer to provide for the distribution of all of a fund’s principle to designated organizations, the fund is a non-permanent designated fund. We suggest the use of such pass-through funds as a convenient alternative for honouring significant annual pledges and individual requests. Such funds can be promptly passed through the Community Foundation to any number of qualifying tax-exempt organizations in the same manner as the income of the Community Foundation’s permanent designated funds. The advantage to donors is that they obtain an immediate tax deduction when the gift is made to the Community Foundation, while distribution to designated beneficiaries can occur at a future date. At that time, full acknowledgment of the donor’s gift is made to the designated organizations or the donor may wish to remain anonymous and the gift will be made as such.
Corporate Fund
You may find it advantageous to set up a fund in the name of your corporation or business as a vehicle for its community giving. While yearly contributions to a company fund may be uneven due to fluctuation in profit, distributions can be held at a consistent level. We can also assist businesses in evaluating the many charitable requests they receive and in administering funds for special purposes such as scholarships and awards.
NOTE: Corporations might also decide to choose to make an annual donation to the Foundation’s Community Endowment Fund, thereby benefiting the entire community. As corporations are inundated with requests from charitable organizations, a gift to the Community Foundation can eliminate the work and time of choosing which to support from among many worthy causes.
Retiring Chairman and/or CEO Fund
A business or corporation can honour a retiring Chairman and/or CEO by establishing a fund in that person’s name. The income from this fund can be directed to a particular organization or field of interest of the Chairman and/or CEO. The establishment of such a fund would not only honour, in perpetuity, the corporate contribution of such an individual but would also enhance the profile of the corporation within the community.
Private Foundations
Should you be a Trustee or sit on the Board of a private foundation, you and your colleagues may find administering the fund and fulfilling the granting procedures time consuming or onerous given the size of your fund. A fund in the name of that foundation can be set up within the Maple Ridge Community Foundation. The foundation arranges to move its assets to this fund and dissolves the foundation. It is important to note that the foundation in question maintains its identity. In fact, if the Directors desire, the name of the foundation and its good works receive even broader attention because it is included in the Community Foundation’s annual report and all literature announces the grants that are made. They may even participate in the Community Foundation’s grant giving ceremonies or have their own.
The Maple Ridge Community Foundation offers wide ranging flexibility. In the end, it comes down to the wishes of the private foundation and its Directors. The Board and Trustees of the private foundation have satisfaction in knowing that a permanent organization is in place to administer their fund in perpetuity, and that the name of their foundation remains identified with charitable activities within the community in perpetuity.