Family Traditions, Year-End Giving, and Forever Funding 

Family traditions are a great way of conveying a family’s values, history, and culture from one generation to the next. Starting a family giving tradition is an excellent way to build relationships with your family.  

At the Community Foundation, we recently shared a resource from 21/64, which provides multigenerational advising, facilitation, and training for next-generation engagement within family philanthropy and other family enterprises. The worksheet and instructional guide they created, helps individuals and families reflect on how they allocated resources of (valuable) Time, (unique) Talent, (generous) Treasure & (peer network) Ties during the past year. They can also set intentions for how they would like to harness each of the four categories in the year ahead. We hope this will be an excellent blueprint for formulating future philanthropic strategies and a set of tactical next steps to lead you and your family with your giving traditions and how you realize your vision for change.  If you would like to try this exercise within your own family, please let us know.  

Along with family traditions, donors are beginning to turn more of their focus towards their year-end giving.   It is estimated that about one-third of charitable giving happens in the month of December.   As you think about your own giving, please remember some of these strategies that may help you continue to give with maximum charitable impact and while maximizing your tax benefits: 

1. Donating non-cash assets – even with inflation, some donors may still have stocks that have appreciation and can generally eliminate the capital gains tax they would otherwise incur if they sold the assets first and donated the proceeds.  

1. Charitable “bunching” – while a number of donors no longer itemize deductions, it may be beneficial combine or “bunch” their 2022 and 2023 charitable contributions into this year, itemize deductions this year while still taking a standard deduction on their 2023 tax returns.  

1. Utilizing your IRA Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) – regardless of whether a donor itemizes, if they are 70½ and older they can direct their RMD (up to $100,000 per year) from their traditional IRA to create a Qualified Charitable Distribution. 

1. Creating a Donor Advised Fund (DAF) – by creating a donor-advised fund, donors separate the tax benefits of their philanthropy from their decisions about where to give, allowing them more time to be more strategic in their giving. 

Through the end of 2022 we are turning our focus again to building our Touch the Future Fund. This fund’s unrestricted nature allows the Community Foundation to respond to the community’s changing needs as they arise and is essential considering the continued uncertainties we face. By adding to the Touch the Future Fund, donors create a lasting impact that will grow and change as the community does. As with gifts made to any of our other endowed funds, the contributions you make as part of your giving tradition will turn into forever funding that will always be there to benefit our community. 

Please remember that while the deadline for donating for the 2022 tax year is Dec. 31st, our offices will only be open until 5:00 pm on December 30th. Checks sent by mail need to be postmarked by Dec. 31st to count for 2022 charitable deductions. Gifts of stock or IRA assets may take up to two weeks to ensure they arrive in time. To learn more about how your donations can make a lasting impact, contact Laura Malone, Development Officer, at 440.984.7390 

We hope that your family traditions add joy to your holiday season. We thank you for including Community Foundation in your giving at any time throughout this past year. We hope you have a healthy and safe holiday season.