Through that relationship with the California Community Foundation, our Community Foundation will also cooperate with donors who wish to use structured donations — either cash or appreciated non-cash assets — as part of their strategy to reduce income and estate taxes.

• A single donation — with an immediate charitable deduction — can establish a life annuity that will pay you an income for the rest of your life. The annuity can start immediately, or it can be deferred as part of your retirement plans. Optionally, the income can be paid jointly to you and your spouse (or some other person) as long as either of you lives. After you (and your joint recipient) die, the balance is paid into a donor-defined fund to endow your chosen charitable cause.
• A large IRA or other tax-deferred retirement savings plan can be heavily taxed on your death. However, making the Community Foundation the beneficiary of your IRA could avoid that penalty while securing 20 years of payments to your heirs and still leaving a balance for a donor-defined fund.
• With a life estate, you donate your home to the Community Foundation and receive an immediate charitable deduction. However, you also receive the right to continue living in your home for the rest of your life. After your death, your home is sold and used to create a donor-defined fund as you specified when you originally made the donation.
• A charitable lead trust also gives you an immediate deduction for your donation of cash or income-producing assets. The income is used by the Community Foundation through the rest of your lifetime. When your heirs reach a certain age, the trust is dissolved and paid to those heirs.
• Various forms of charitable remainder trusts involve a donation (with an immediate deduction) and income back to the donor. This significantly reduces income taxes (including capital gains taxes) and estate taxes while providing for retirement income and income to heirs. The balance remains to create a donor-defined fund.

Yes, you could create your own private family foundation. However, not only are there substantial setup costs, but the tax laws impose additional burdens — including a 2% federal excise tax on investment income. Further, the financial records of a private foundation become public, exposed to the whole world. Structured donations and our donor-defined funds avoid both the costs and publicity of a private foundation.

Anyone considering a structured donation or a donation of a non-cash asset for the purpose of reducing taxes should first consult a tax professional. Once a tax professional recommends the use of a special donation to a charity, please consider the Community Foundation for Oak Park.

Safety: While structured donations usually require only a single act by the donor, they require a long-term commitment by the charity. Our relationship with the California Community Foundation includes using the latter to administer our structured donations. Thus, our commitments are backed by $2,600,000,000 in resources held by a charity that has a history of more than 90 years of handling special donations and that has been licensed by the California Department of Insurance to underwrite annuities and similar products.

Efficiency: A structured donation is, of course, applied to charitable purposes. The Community Foundation for Oak Park operates entirely through unpaid volunteers. We own or rent no offices, operating out of the homes of our officers. Through our efficient, bureaucracy-free operation, we maximize the resources applied to your charitable goals.

Local Control: The Board of Trustees of the Community Foundation is selected entirely from residents of Oak Park. We understand our community and its needs. We can ensure that your charitable goals are met through our donor-defined funds program. However, for donor-defined funds, we do not restrict the geographical scope only to Oak Park.

Privacy: Unlike many other charities, the Community Foundation’s privacy policy prohibits us from disclosing information about our donors except when forced to do so by law. We do not make commercial use of your name, address, phone number, amount donated, or any other information about you.

Costs

The California Community Foundation levies an annual administrative fees on the principal of most structured donations but only after actually receiving the donation.

Until the California Community Foundation makes the donation available for use by the Community Foundation for Oak Park, we charge no fee for these structured donations. After a donation becomes available to us, the terms of our donor-defined funds then apply.

See our Contacts page if you wish to make a donation.