Fostering trust and making a difference

Many people are not aware of the extent to which America’s charitable organizations help improve quality of life in our communities. From social services to the arts, virtually every aspect of our lives is touched by the work of nonprofits. Indeed, the gifts Americans give to charity every year total more than $557 billion and provide critical support for nearly 1.5 million organizations that are helping communities thrive.

Research shows that trust continues to be an important factor in charitable giving. Unfortunately, high levels of trust sometimes can be hard to achieve; 73% of donors surveyed said they felt that it is very important to trust a charity before giving, but only 19% said they highly trust charities. So, what should you do if you want to support a particular charity or cause, but have reservations?

Here are four examples of how Greater Cincinnati Foundation (GCF) can help:

1. If you’ve established a donor advised fund at GCF to organize your giving, lean on the team at GCF for insights into which charities are best suited to achieve your goals for impact at any given time. Our team stays up-to-date on local charities, their priorities, staff, and impact. We can provide information and insights to help you make informed decisions.
2. If you’re committed to supporting a specific charity but you’d rather not give the money outright, you could consider setting up a designated fund at GCF to make distributions to the charity according to the parameters you set. Because the charity receives the money in increments every year, charitable dollars remaining in the fund are protected from the charity’s creditors if the charity were to fall on hard times.
3. If you’d like GCF to help out even more, you might consider establishing a field-of-interest fund so that the GCF team can deploy its expertise in selecting charities that are best suited from year to year to achieve your goals for community impact.
4. To ensure that the mission of GCF itself stays strong and that dollars will flow to support critical community needs for generations, you can establish an unrestricted fund at GCF. You can add to the unrestricted fund during your lifetime, such as through gifts of appreciated stock, and you can also include a gift to the fund in your estate plan through your will or an IRA beneficiary designation.

GCF is unique in its structure as a perpetual institution governed by an independent governing board. Our mission is to improve the quality of life in our region across generations by connecting donors to the causes they care about and by acting as a trusted partner on critical community issues. We’re honored to work alongside you and your family as you build trust with the charitable organizations that are making a difference for everyone who lives and works in the community we love.3

As always, thank you for the opportunity to be your partner in philanthropy. Please, don’t hesitate to reach out to your Philanthropic Advisor at 513-241-2880.