Make-A-Will Month, anonymous giving, and sometimes less can be more
Make-A-Will Month: Let’s have a conversation!
At GiveWell Community Foundation, we are honored to work with your clients to support the causes they care about through a donor-advised or other type of fund. We’re also inspired by your clients who are in the early stages of getting acquainted with the Community Foundation and are considering establishing a fund. Thank you for your referrals!
Wherever your client may be in the stages of philanthropic planning, the professional staff at the Community Foundation welcomes the opportunity to meet. And, considering that August is national Make-A-Will Month, now may be the perfect time to get together.
Here are five insights into what you and your clients can expect at these meetings:
You’ll get personal, dedicated service.
Unlike large financial institutions’ donor-advised fund platforms where access to a dedicated donor services team can be rare, the staff at the Community Foundation lives here and is part of the fabric of our community. We regularly meet with donors alongside their professional advisors to assess the current circumstances and to determine the best charitable tax strategies for each client. This includes evaluating the best assets to give to a fund, including publicly traded stock and even other noncash assets such as real estate or closely held stock.
We care about your clients’ intentions.
Our staff wants to understand the areas of charitable interest that are of importance for each client, whether that’s the arts, health care, social services, the environment, education, community development, religion, or something else. This allows us to keep our ears to the ground, make local connections for your clients to learn about specific nonprofits and get involved in meaningful ways.
We want to understand the next generation.
We’ll talk about the roles your client envisions for the successor advisors named in the donor-advised fund documentation, such as children, who will make decisions about grant recipients when the client is no longer living or no longer able to advise on the fund. Often, these roles will parallel the roles your clients have selected for children in their wills and trusts.
We adopt a holistic approach.
We can assist your client not only establish a donor-advised fund, if that’s a fit, but also explore other types of funds in order to meet the client’s specific goals. Sometimes our staff discovers during a meeting that the client’s wishes are best served through multiple funds. For example, a client may establish a donor-advised fund and also decide to establish a designated fund for a particular nonprofit organization or an unrestricted fund to support the Community Foundation’s work in perpetuity.
We make the process a breeze.
As you know if you’ve already worked with a client to establish a fund at the Community Foundation, the paperwork is straightforward, not cumbersome, and customized for clients’ needs and goals. As we’re exploring updating an existing donor-advised fund, establishing a new donor-advised fund, or adding additional types of funds to a client’s portfolio, we’ll prepare simple documentation to capture a client’s wishes, collect important contact information, and work with you to address the client’s vision for their charitable impact both during and after the client’s lifetime.
We welcome the opportunity to gather with you and your clients at their convenience. Please reach out anytime.

Client confidential: Anonymous giving
Clients’ preferences for recognition vary widely. For example:
- Many clients appreciate – and sometimes even seek – recognition for gifts to their favorite nonprofit organizations. This includes securing naming rights on buildings or consenting to prominent features on an organization’s “donor wall” or in other marketing materials.
- Beyond wanting to feel valued, some of your clients give publicly for other reasons, including knowing that their names can lend credibility to an organization and that their gifts can serve as an inspiration to other donors.
- Some clients, though, are adamant that the nonprofit organizations they support must honor their wishes for anonymous giving.
The Community Foundation can help your clients navigate relationships with favorite charitable organizations, including the extent to which the client’s name is visible. For example, a client who organizes their giving through a donor-advised fund at the Community Foundation can make decisions about recognition in the following ways:
- Typically, when a client recommends grants to favorite nonprofit from the donor-advised fund, the Community Foundation will issue the grant checks to the nonprofit noting that the gift is from the client’s fund so that the client receives the desired recognition.
- Sometimes, though, with certain grants (or all grants), your clients want their support to be anonymous, whether because of modesty, religious convictions, avoidance of unwanted solicitations, or simply wanting to keep the focus on the nonprofit and not themselves. In these cases, the Community Foundation will issue the grant check with no reference whatsoever to the client’s name or the name of the fund but instead inform the organization that the donor chooses to remain anonymous. Rest assured that our staff can follow up on the grant to ensure it is used in a way as intended by the fundholder.
- Some clients choose to name their fund something that’s not personalized to them (the “Empowering Community Fund,” for example) so that the fund receives credit while the client stays anonymous.
- Finally, unlike a private foundation (which is not very private, ironically), your client’s donor-advised or other type of fund at the Community Foundation is not subject to rigorous reporting and disclosure requirements. This means the fund’s details, and even the identity of the fund itself, are able to stay confidential within the walls of the Community Foundation.
Whatever the reasons your clients might prefer to give anonymously, whether from time to time or all the time, the Community Foundation is committed to following your clients’ wishes.

Less can be more: Charitable giving helps parents pass wealth to children
How much is too much? That’s a question many parents ask as they structure lifetime gifts and bequests to children in their financial and estate plans. Affluent clients are sometimes concerned that leaving millions of dollars, or even hundreds of thousands, to their children could backfire and hinder their kids’ ability and motivation to achieve financial independence.
In addition to concerns about fostering financial reliance, many parents are concerned that their children will miss out on the satisfaction of knowing they built wealth on their own. These parents believe that the challenges and struggles along the way will ultimately enrich their children’s lives with intangible benefits that are far greater than the obvious benefits that come with gifts or an inheritance of significant financial resources.
If you work with clients who may be contemplating this, please reach out to us. With the increased amount of generational transfer of wealth taking place, our professional staff is accustomed to working with families who are in this situation. While you are creating connections with your clients and their children, we can help you evaluate strategies such as:
- Establishing philanthropic components of an estate plan so that children receive only the amount that can pass to them free of estate tax, with the rest passing to a nonprofit organization, via a fund established at the Community Foundation.
- Setting up a donor-advised fund to allow your clients to support favorite charities during their lifetimes, with the terms of the donor-advised fund providing that the children step in as successor advisors following the clients’ deaths.
- As successor advisors to the donor-advised fund, the children can work with the Community Foundation to recommend grants to favorite nonprofit organizations, support interest areas pre-selected by their parents, and create a generational legacy of giving in your family name.
Many clients are attracted to this type of structure because not only could it avoid estate tax, but it also allows their children to stay involved with the family’s wealth, work together and keep sibling bonds strong, and get involved in the community.
Please reach out to the Community Foundation anytime you have questions. We are happy to explore strategies to help your clients meet their financial and tax goals, as well as honor their wishes for children to live happy and productive lives.

Ready to get started?
You know your clients. We know philanthropy. Together we can ensure your clients make the best decisions for making a difference in the community.

Lori Martini
Vice President/CPO
863-683-3131
lmartini@givecf.org