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Fundamentals, Legal Compliance Guidance
Question: Our corporate foundation is planning to establish a scholarship fund for our employees' children. What do we need to keep in mind and what steps do we need to follow to ensure we are complying with the legal requirements?
Response: The granting of scholarships, fellowships, and…
Fundamentals
Keeping donors interested and excited about their philanthropy is a fundamental task for a community foundation. After all, donors are your best source for additional gifts and larger “legacy” gifts in the future.
Community foundations provide donor services to achieve two main goals - to keep…
Legal Compliance Guidance
Question:May a corporate foundation allow corporate board members who do not sit on the foundation’s board to designate grants from the corporate foundation?
Answer:No. All grants from the corporate foundation must be approved by the corporate foundation’s board of directors. No individual—…
Sample Document
You can use this document to guide the development of your disclosure and confidentiality statement for staff and board of directors.
Fundamentals
As needs in their communities continue to grow, community foundations recognize the importance of making the right investment decisions. That’s because good investments help attract donors, preserve the long-term purchasing power of assets, and increase the amount of money available for grantmaking…
Fundamentals
A development plan outlines a foundation’s goals and strategies for developing resources. It explains how staff, board members, and other volunteers should focus their development efforts within a certain period (usually one or two years). A development plan also helps measure progress in the midst…
Legal Compliance Guidance
What is the Sarbanes-Oxley Act?
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 was designed to rebuild public trust in the corporate community in the wake of the Enron scandal and other corporate and accounting scandals. Sarbanes-Oxley requires publicly traded companies to adhere to governance standards that…
Fundamentals
Most community foundations operate a competitive grantmaking program that is responsive to their community—meaning they make grants in response to requests from those seeking grants. At times, however, you may ask: Is this approach the most effective use of our philanthropic dollars?
Some…
Legal Compliance Guidance
What is the five percent payout requirement?
Each year, every private foundation must make eligible charitable expenditures that equal or exceed approximately five percent of the value of its endowment. The purpose behind the minimum payout requirement contained in Internal Revenue Code Section…
Fundamentals
Both the board and CEO advance each foundation’s mission. They hold different responsibilities, but they need to support and balance each other.
The board chair-CEO partnership is crucial to your foundation’s effectiveness, as well as to your success as a CEO. As one CEO said, “To have a…
Sample Document
This is a sample document to guide the development of your Board of Directors election and retention policy.
Fundamentals
An annual report is your foundation's report to the community—a year-end summary of your activities, a record of grants and issues funded, and a description of donor contributions. The annual report is likely your community foundation's most important public relations tool and part of your larger…
Legal Compliance Guidance
Note
The information below was originally developed by the Finance, Administration & Operations Group (FAOG) Accounting Practices Committee and was last updated Aug. 19, 2010. It was updated in 2025 by the FAOG Accounting Practices Committee, in collaboration with Baker Tilly US, LLP, and was…
Legal Compliance Guidance
U.S. private foundations are increasingly involved in international grantmaking. One way for a private foundation to give overseas is to make grants directly to foreign charities. Many U.S. private foundations, however, may want to consider giving overseas indirectly through a "Friends of"…
Fundamentals
The Council on Foundations' definition of “international grantmaking” includes grants made by U.S. foundations and corporations to overseas recipients as well as grants made to U.S.-based organizations operating international programs. This also includes grants made toward activities wholly within…
Legal Compliance Guidance
With tighter restrictions on grants to supporting organizations after the PPA, reclassifying into a public charity with fewer restrictions is an option worth considering.
Supporting organizations that meets the public support test can be reclassified as a public charity under section 509(a)(…
