Nonprofit Resources

A legacy gift, also sometimes called a planned gift, is a charitable donation arranged during a donor's lifetime but whose benefits are realized by the nonprofit organization after the donor's passing. It's a way for individuals to leave a lasting impact on the causes they care about. Think of it as including a favorite charity in your long-term financial or estate plan. These gifts can take many forms. A bequest in your will is [...]

The summer months are typically slow, but if ever there were a summer to step up your fundraising efforts–especially efforts to grow your endowment or reserve funds–this would be the summer to do it. That’s because new research points to a lack of awareness that the percentage of Americans giving to charities has noticeably declined in recent years. Indeed, only one in three people is aware of this decline, according to the survey. This [...]

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 [...]

While arguably the recent collapse of Silicon Valley Bank sent its biggest shockwaves through the startup and banking sectors, nonprofit organizations are not immune from the ramifications. Charitable organizations’ concerns range from specific worries that the bank’s successors will reduce or stop lending and support for affordable housing and community programming initiatives, to wide-ranging uneasiness throughout the broader nonprofit sector about the safety of money held in banking institutions across the country. Indeed, a [...]

Giving highly-appreciated assets to a public charity is a great way for your donors to support your mission. But time and again, we are reminded of the critical importance of following the IRS’s rules for documenting these gifts and securing the charitable deduction when those gifts take the form of highly-appreciated, non-marketable assets such as real estate, closely-held stock, and artwork, all of which are sometimes referred to as “alternative assets.” Many planned giving [...]

At the core of any fundraising program is the all-important factor of trust. Unfortunately, recent studies have shown that donor trust in nonprofit organizations may be waning. But that doesn’t mean your organization has to be part of this trend. Here are three suggestions for boosting donor trust in your organization’s ability to deliver on its mission over the long-term. Get donors involved now As you and your team encourage donors to include your [...]

Now that the year-end dust has settled after a busy first couple months of the new year, your organization’s attention may turn to getting serious about fundraising, and especially making sure your planned giving strategies are well underway. It is not unusual for planned giving conversations to start six months or more before a gift is inked. And, of course, the fourth quarter is when many of your donors want to wrap things up [...]

The Qualified Charitable Distribution (QCD) is creating quite the buzz in the nonprofit sector! Through a QCD, a donor who has reached the age of 70 ½ may be eligible to make annual distributions of up to $100,000 from IRAs directly to a qualifying public charity. As you no doubt are aware, in December 2022, Congress passed new laws that codified the much-anticipated Legacy IRA. The Legacy IRA expands the QCD to allow a [...]

The gold standard for many nonprofits whose missions are critical to our society is the ability to provide reliable services to the people who are counting on them, regardless of economic ups and downs. This is especially true in the wake of weather-related and other natural disasters, and even man-made tragedies, that create community upheaval. In the face of the sheer unpredictability of when community needs might escalate, it’s often hard for a nonprofit [...]

On December 29, 2022, President Biden signed into law the long-awaited legislation known as SECURE 2.0 as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 (“CAA”), a $1.65 trillion-dollar omnibus spending bill. The nonprofit sector in particular has rallied around a component of this legislation addressing a planning tool called the Qualified Charitable Distribution (QCD). You’re likely already familiar with the QCD and perhaps your organization even has received these distributions. As a reminder, [...]