Charitable Vehicles

To ensure that the philanthropy of your clients meets all of their charitable and financial goals, the Lincoln Community Foundation provides a variety of programs for directing their charitable gift to the ultimate beneficiary.

Endowed Funds
An endowed fund is designed to last - and grow - forever; its purpose is to provide a continuing, perpetual stream of grants to the organizations or causes that the individual chooses. To accommodate a wide range of desires, the Lincoln Community Foundation offers several different types of endowed funds:

• Supporting Organization. A supporting organization is an excellent alternative to a private foundation. With a supporting organization, your client helps select board members, chooses the investments and direct grants to the causes he/she cares about most. Plus, your client gets the most favorable tax treatment, immediate startup, and the ease of administration that comes with working through the Lincoln Community Foundation. In short, a supporting organization offers the advantages of a private foundation without the more restrictive private foundation IRS regulations.
• Donor Advised Fund. This type of fund is designed to keep your client and/or your client's family continually involved in determining the many ways his/her gift is used in the future. Each year, your client (or your client's named representatives) identifies ways to use dollars from his/her fund to address the issues and needs he/she cares about most. Your client's recommendations are submitted to our board for approval; we then distribute the grant dollars. A donor advised fund functions very much like a private foundation, but the Lincoln Community Foundation handles all the administrative, financial and reporting duties.
• Designated Fund. This type of fund has the most narrow focus. Your client can use a gift to benefit one or more specific nonprofit organizations. For example, your client might designate the senior center, the museum, his/her place of worship, or virtually any nonprofit charitable organization as the sole recipient of grants from the fund. -Scholarship Fund. This is a specialized type of endowed fund that can be directed to benefit students. Your client determines the criteria a student must meet in order to qualify for a scholarship from the fund. Your client may specify that the students be from a certain community, attend a particular school, or major in a certain field of study. With your client's generous assistance, deserving students achieve their academic and career-oriented goals.
• Area of Interest Fund. This type of fund has a broader focus. Your client specifies an important area of community life that is to benefit from your client's gift. For example, your client could specify performing arts, services for the aging, the environment, education, youth-at-risk, or any aspect of life that is of special interest to your client. The Foundation's program staff then makes sure that all grants from your client's fund are directed to projects that are making a difference in your client's specified field of interest.
• Unrestricted Fund. This is the broadest type of fund and one that has the potential for the greatest long-term impact on the community's most pressing needs. Rather than designating a specific recipient or identifying a particular field of interest, your client entrusts the Lincoln Community Foundation with putting his/her gift to work wherever it will do the greatest community good. Community needs change over time and the issues that need to be addressed many years from now may be quite different from the issues that need to be addressed this year and next. Our staff is continually evaluating all aspects of community well-being - arts and culture, economic development, education, environment, health and human services, neighborhood revitalization, and more. The flexibility of an unrestricted gift enables the Foundation to respond, in your client's name, to the community's greatest opportunities or needs, today and tomorrow.

The Lincoln Community Foundation can help you help your clients achieve their charitable giving goals. We welcome the opportunity to work with you. For more information, please call the Foundation office at (402) 474-2345 or lcf@lcf.org.