Types of Funds

Community Funds
Community funds allow the donor as well as Skagit Community Foundation to support future needs of the community by responding to needs, emergencies and problems. By creating community funds, donors create a living legacy that will grow and change as the community does.

• Make the broadest impact on the community over time.
  
• Recognize that community agencies and community needs change over time and allow the fund to remain flexible to respond to those changes.

Field of Interest Funds
Field of interest funds allow donors to support a broad area of concern such as education, the arts, youth services or the disabled. The Skagit Community Foundation makes grants to the most appropriate programs or organizations within the field of interest. Donors may even specify a geographic area to benefit from that fund.

• Focuses significant contribution on a certain area that is meaningful to the donor, such as support for the elderly, children, health care, or a geographic area.
  
• Make a timeless impact on that aspect of the community by leaving specific grant-making decisions to the governing Committees of the future.

Donor Advised Funds
Donor advised funds provide maximum convenience and flexibility by enabling donors to make contributions to charitable organizations in lean and profitable years. Through the creation of donor advised funds, donors can make suggestions for distributions to specific charities. Many donors chose this type of fund to remember their alma maters, churches, and other favorite charities. A donor advised fund allows donors to make suggestions about distributions of income and principal. It is especially useful for donors who want to take a charitable deduction one year and make distributions over several years.

• Simplify charitable giving.
  
• Secure maximum tax benefits for donors' charitable gifts.
  
• Allow donors to support numerous charities of their choice through one simple donation.
  
• Simplify tax reporting of charitable contributions.
  
• Offer maximum flexibility to give to varying charities or to change beneficiaries over time.
  
• Can involve spouses, children, or associates in charitable giving.
  
• Offer a way to maintain a steady manner of giving through both profitable and leaner times.
  
• Give donors the satisfaction, flexibility, and personal involvement similar to having their own private foundation without incurring the administrative burdens.

Scholarship Funds
Scholarship funds allow students to pursue academic goals and can be established by companies, organizations, families and individuals. Donors often choose scholarship funds to memorialize a loved one or to honor a special person.

• Provide support to graduates of specific high schools or students of particular colleges or universities.
  
• Allow donors to set up guidelines for scholarship recipients including academic merit, leadership, motivation, financial need, or a demonstrated or potential talent.

Designated Funds
Designated funds ensure that support will be provided to specific eligible organizations. If any of the organizations should go out of business, or should change the purpose of its activities, the Skagit Community Foundation will ensure that donors' charitable goals are continued.

• Support those organizations that donors have cared about most during their lifetimes.
  
• Allow donors to establish one fund to support several organizations in the future. Donors may designate percentages of fund earnings to specific organizations.