Establish a Fund

With a Donor Advised Fund, you can have an ongoing involvement in the use of your gift. You can work with our staff to identify ways of using your fund to address the issues and needs you care about most. Many of the funding options may be established in your name, or in the name of your family, organization, or anyone you wish to honor. All grants distributed from the fund you establish are then awarded to charities in the name of that fund. It’s a great way to always be involved with, and remembered for, your community investment.

We recommend that Donor Advised Accounts be opened with a minimum of $10,000, and a minimum account balance of $10,000 must be maintained.

Nonprofit Agency Funds: Nonprofits/agencies establish endowment or capacity (temporary) funds with the Community Foundation. As a partner, the organization receives a host of services from the Community Foundation including back office administration, investment management and professional development/education.

Have a favorite cause? You may choose to direct your gift to a specific nonprofit organization. Help provide ongoing funding for a senior center, museum, or virtually any nonprofit charitable organization. A Designated Fund enables nonprofit organizations to build their endowment and enhance their ability to accept large and complex gifts.

You can target your gift to address needs in an important area of community life, such as the Arts, Aging, At-Risk Youth, or, you may identify any field of personal interest that is close to your heart. Our Board then awards grants to community organizations or programs that are making a difference in the field you select.

The Community Foundation is well known for its extensive scholarship program. Many donors have created Scholarship Funds as memorials to loved ones and friends. Donors can define the criteria of their funds, awarding students according to a specific high school, field of study, etc.

With Unrestricted Funds, your gift can address our community’s ever-changing needs. We continually evaluate all aspects of community well-being: arts and culture, economic development, education, environment, health and human services, and more. The flexibility of your unrestricted gift affords enables the Foundation’s program experts to respond to the community’s most-pressing needs, today, and for the unanticipated needs of tomorrow.

Your company’s Community Fund can serve as a central vehicle for all of the firm’s philanthropic efforts and can be used to promote and strengthen the company’s commitment to our community.  The company receives double promotion of their giving: by the company’s own promotion and the Coral Gables Community Foundation’s promotion of the company’s giving. The company’s Community Fund will serve as a central source to receive and make contributions from and on behalf of the Company, as well as its shareholders, directors, managers and professional support employees.

The Coral Gables Community Foundation allows new, small and limited activity charitable programs that reflect a similar commitment to the goals set forth in our mission, the opportunity to operate under our 501 c(3) non-profit status. As a fiscal sponsor, the Foundation acts as an umbrella non-profit organization for a charitable organization and accepts and administers funds on its behalf. The Foundation is legally responsible for the funds received and insures that the funds are used for charitable purposes, and that donor reporting requirements are met in a timely fashion.  Fiscal sponsorship permits your charitable cause to receive tax-deductible donations while we handle the administrative work. This arrangement also minimizes the cost of meeting the record-keeping and reporting requirements imposed by the State and IRS as the Foundation handles these necessary filings. As the fiscal sponsor, the Community Foundation maintains full discretion and control over the funds received for a project and has the right to withdraw support from the project if its original goals are not being accomplished or the grant agreement is not followed.

Funds can be endowed (only the earnings— not the principal — are used to make grants) or non-endowed (distributions can be made from both income and principal).

Endowments are permanent funds established to perpetually carry out the donor’s philanthropic intentions while being invested in the Foundation’s prudent, long-term investment strategy. In essence, endowments are gifts with the most maximized growth and giving. 

A non-endowed fund may be converted to an endowment but an endowed fund may not become non-endowed.