Fitting a Fund to Your Needs :

The flexibility of The Foundation can mean a lot to you. Whether you want to help house the homeless, conquer disease, support the arts, benefit youth, or fulfill a dozen other purposes to better the future of our community, we can be of real service. You can choose or combine any of our fund types to express your charitable intentions.
 
 

Community Fund (Unrestricted Capital Fund):

The Foundation specializes in figuring out just what will help our community most. Under the guidance of knowledgeable advisory panels, grants committee, and Board; we investigate, define, and design solutions to our community's pressing problems. We confer with regional experts, with community leaders, with local charitable agencies, and with other funders. If no one is addressing the issue, we find someone who will.

Unrestricted funds can be seen as charitable capital for Mayerthorpe and areas within the boundaries of The Mayerthorpe Area Community Foundation, with earnings available to address long-term solutions for problems like hunger and homelessness; to respond to new and emerging needs; to build families and promote the arts; to educate, inform and uplift. As conditions change, so do our grants.

By contributing to the Community Fund, you can be assured that your gift will always be used to meet vital needs, improve the quality of life in Mayerthorpe and areas within the boundaries of The Mayerthorpe Area Community Foundation, and respond quickly as needs change with changing times.
 
 

Field-Of- Interest Funds:

Then there is the older couple who says, "When we grew up, things were simple. Kids today have so many tough choices. We'd like to help if we could."

They can! The clients who create a Field-of-Interest Fund name the cause closest to their hearts. This couple might establish a fund for troubled youth. Or they could choose a more specific focus, like drug abuse prevention, counseling for teen parents, or job training in poor neighborhoods. Then we go to work, researching and preparing a grant making plan for that field of interest. Our Board evaluates proposed grants against your client's charitable intention and any other fund guidelines. After we make each grant, we carefully monitor the results.

On the other hand, our client's closest interests may be within the community where they live and/or work. They can create a field-of-interest fund that restricts the beneficiaries to those who serve this specific community. The annual solicitation of specific organizations or projects is then left in our capable hands.

The real advantage of field-of interest funds is that they keep us " up with the times." We will always have young people to be concerned about. But the problems faced by today's youth weren't around 30 years ago and neither were the charities that address them. Many of tomorrow's issues can't even be guessed at today.

Rather than locking our client's fund into a few specific charities that may be effective today (but gone tomorrow), The Foundation places your clients' field-of-interest fund grants in the best hands at the right times, in perpetuity.
 
 

Designated Funds:

Our clients may have preference for a certain charity or want a number of specific organizations to benefit from his or her fund. Or he or she may wish to support fledgling charities but aren't quite sure they are ready to manage an endowment fund. Sometimes a client wonders what will happen to a direct gift if the charity goes out of business.

A Designated Fund in The Foundation can solve all these worries. Whether one or several or a complicated series of bequests, we can easily administer our client's funds in compliance with his or her charitable intent. We take care of the investments and regularly make distributions from the fund to the charities named by the donor.

If the unexpected should occur, and a charity ceases operation or significantly changes its focus or the purpose it serves becomes obsolete, we'll be able to redirect the donor's funds to a similar purpose without losing time or depleting the fund by going to court. Before making any change in the beneficiary of our client's fund, however, our Board will carefully review the facts, and in some instances, consult with the board of the now dysfunctional organization.
 
 

Donor-Advised Funds:

Wealthy families face myriad charitable requests. Just managing the correspondence and cheque-writing can overwhelm the charitable impulse. Plus, there's no place to hide from all those well-intentioned fund-raisers.

That's why we offer the Donor-Advised Fund. Our client can refer requests to us or suggest we make payments to any charity he or she chooses, so long as the proposed grants are for recognized charitable purposes. Then we take care of all the administrative functions. While our client's recommendations cannot be legally binding (our Board must have final say under our Act), we take suggestions very seriously. Our Board has worked out a procedure, which includes staff scrutiny of basic information furnished by the recommended charity. We protect the donor by making sure the charity is above-board and actively serving the public.

Donor-Advised Funds allow donors to professionalize their charitable giving without the annoyances or costs entailed in running a private foundation. Our donor may call upon the staff at The Foundation to help with any aspect of grant making. Upon donor request, we can initiate challenge programs, identify worthy charities in a given field, locate information about out-of-town groups, and evaluate the results of support given.
 
 

Additional Options:

In addition to major types of funds described above, there are other ways to fulfill our client's interests and support the work of The Foundation.
 
 

Operating Fund or Operating Endowment Fund (Directors Fund):

It makes good business sense to support the operating costs of The Foundation. A gift to the operating fund can be used to defray current expenses incurred in the day-to-day operation of The Foundation. A contribution to our Operating Endowment provides a source of income to cover operating costs of The Foundation for years to come. As The Foundation is, itself, a charitable organization, your contribution to help defray current or future operating cost is tax deductible to the fullest extent.
 
 

Scholarship Funds:

You might want to set up a Scholarship Fund so that deserving young people can get an education they might not otherwise receive. We prefer maximum flexibility so that we can meet the greatest need, but you can specify the schools the young people are to come from or the ones they are to attend. You could also choose a field of study and even require that the recipient's intent to practice their profession within the boundaries of our Foundation for a stated time. The scholarships can be for any level of education or client specifies. Whatever the educational goal, The Foundation will see to it that our client's wishes are carried out.
 
 

Pass-Through Fund:

If your wish is for the distribution of all fund's principal to designated organizations, The Foundation could be used to create a non permanent, Pass-Through Fund. Such funds can be promptly passed through The Foundation to any number of qualifying charitable organizations in the same manner as the income of The Foundation's permanent designated funds. One advantage to donors is that they obtain an immediate tax deduction when the gift is made to The Foundation, but distribution to designated beneficiaries can occur at a future date. At that time, full acknowledgment of the donor's gift is made to the designated organizations.
 
 

Agency Endowment:

You may sit on the Board of a non-profit agency, which, as a charitable organization committed to providing service over the long haul, sooner or later will need a permanent endowment. Your organization can realize its long-term objectives by creating an Agency Endowment Fund at The Foundation. The total value of our assets enables us to diversify our investments more readily than agencies with smaller endowments, thereby increasing opportunities for maximizing total return. And when an agency's endowment is combined with ours for investment purposes, the charges against the agency's endowment are reduced. We also provide a buffer between the agency and its endowment, reducing the temptation to invade principal in times of fiscal crisis.

Placing its endowment with us will relieve an organization of the internal accounting and reporting entailed in managing an endowment. We provide the organization with periodic statements of principal balance and available income. As part of our administrative services, we relieve the organization of the responsibility for preparing and filing tax returns and shedding an annual audit on the endowment.

We want the agency's endowment to grow. We see that as strengthening the private charitable sector in our area. You can discuss with us ways in which The Foundation can help the agency market its endowment.

Mayerthorpe Area Community Foundation
Box 3676
Mayerthorpe, AB   TOE 1NO
Phone (780) 786-1980   Fax (780)786-1981

Or email us at:
macf@vennercs.com