Charitably-inclined individuals and families have many options for organizing their charitable giving. The Winona Community Foundation works with a wide range of donors to help them establish a charitable giving plan to ensure that they can maximize their support of the causes they love.

The Winona Community Foundation works with a donor to establish a fund that will best meet the donor’s needs and goals. Sometimes a donor establishes a designated fund to support one or more favorite charities. Donors also sometimes establish endowment funds to support a favorite charity. Field-of-interest funds are also popular to enable a donor to support a particular cause or address a specific community need over time.

Donor-advised funds are a popular fund because they give donors ease and flexibility without the administrative and tax hurdles of establishing a private foundation. Because of their flexibility and tax benefits, donor-advised funds frequently capture philanthropic dollars that otherwise would be left on the table, thereby increasing the overall amount of money available to your organization and other nonprofits in the community. This happens a lot when a donor wants to give real estate or a closely-held business to charitable causes, or even a large block of publicly-traded stock.

To learn more about how donors are currently viewing charitable giving in general, and the extent to which donors are aware of donor-advised funds (half of donors are familiar with the vehicle!), we recommend checking out the results of a recent study addressing charitable giving and transparency.

Above all, if you have any questions about how the Winona Community Foundation works with donors through donor-advised funds and other vehicles to support your organization and others in the community, please ask! We invite you to reach out and we look forward to the conversation.