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Connecting Donors with Funding Opportunities & Community Needs
We are a state-wide community foundation and are frequently contacted by organizations and municipalities throughout the state who have funding needs and have questions about what opportunities our CF offers. In some cases, our community funds or grant programs can meet these needs, but many times we don't have a program…
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Bequest Best Practices
Hi there! I am hoping to learn more about bequest practices from other community foundations. I am curious as to what internal forms/process are used by other foundations? Is there anything others have found to be particularly useful in navigating planned giving, particularly if there is no signed fund agreement? Are…
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Coffee Talk: Annual Report planning starts now! Strategies to tell meaningful stories year after
We had a great and lively coffee talk exploring how foundations plan and deliver their Annual Report. Let's continue the discussion here - especially for everyone who wanted to share examples with one another!
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Five Creative Virtual Fundraising Ideas
What virtual events have you held?
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Have any of you celebrated financial milestones at your Foundation?
We are almost at $100 million and are trying to find a way to celebrate this in a meaningful way with our donors and our community.
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Family Foundation - Unrestricted DAF
Hi, Our foundation is looking to expand our fund offerings to include a Family Foundation (essentially a Unrestricted DAF). The option has been requested by two different families who wish to establish a fund over $1 million and grant out based on a grant and/or RFP cycle. The fund would have high influx of the principal…
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Looking for how to's and tips re beginning Professional Advisor engagement
We are looking for ideas, and resource samples - if you are willing, regarding Professional Advisor engagement. We don't have a formal "program" but would like to begin reaching out to Advisors to form partnerships. Can you share any info re the below? Your answer may fit in several of questions - just posing the questions…
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Coffee Talk: A Goal, a Path, and a Mission: Communications Planning at Your Foundation.
We had a great and lively coffee talk exploring how community foundations do communications planning and implementation. Let's continue the discussion here - especially for everyone who shared plans for their anniversary events! Here is the link to the recording: Thank you to all who participated and joined us and special…
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Identifying Volunteer Stewards
We would like to identify our Volunteer Stewards in CSuite and wonder how others might be doing this. We don't want to make them Foundant users. Currently I have them set up in the Relationship tab with a Relationship Type of 'Volunteer Steward'. With the addition of Custom Fields I'm wondering if there is a more efficient…
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Field of Interest Fund
Our foundation has one field of interest fund and we have had a question about Board insurance come up. The field of interest fund has it's own Board of directors and committees and they are overseen by the foundation staff and BOD. The fund has been paying D&O insurance which can be quite expense for a small organization…
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Does anyone have an example of a Donor Survey or Donor Intake Form that they are willing to share?
We would like to use this to, not only update Donor Profiles, e-mails, phone numbers, etc, but would like to to engage and track donor interests. Thank you. Renee
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Sharing information when working with Fundraisers for Fiscal Sponsorships and Designated Funds
Hello! Can you tell me how your community foundation handles sharing donation information for designated fund holders (e.g. outside giving to funds for designated organizations) and fiscal sponsor fundraising specialists? Do you allow fundraisers and designated beneficiary organizations write thank-you's for gifts made to…
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Database Ranking - Development Plan
Hello, I have been working our Development Committee to put a system together to rank our database and determine categories and scoring for follow-up and marketing based on a profiles score. We have been progressing along but I have hit a bit of a hurdle. Our database is very large, 14,000+ donor profiles to export,…
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Using Technology to Support Asset Growth Through Challenging Times
Thank you to everyone who joined us today for our Donor Management Coffee Talk: Using Technology to Support Asset Growth Through Challenging Times! We had a few requests for those who raised their hands and shared their projects with us to share some examples of the work that they have been doing. We are creating this…
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Do your (DAF) fund fees contribute to discretionary grantmaking?
Hi Compass, Triangle Community Foundation is looking to benchmark our funding peers who attribute a part of their fund fees directly into their discretionary grantmaking program. This has arisen as one of many potential ways to operationalize our values of equity and community directly into our fund policies. What, if any,…
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Donor Management Coffee Talk: Stewardship Strategies for New Donors in The New Normal 01-06-21
Thank you to everyone who joined us for our Donor Management Coffee Talk: Stewardship Strategies for New Donors in The New Normal today! We loved hearing about what you are all doing: that a few of you are having big year-end returns from your direct mailings, some fantastic virtual tour ideas for engaging your donors,…
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Setting a campaign to sell Pavers
Has anyone set up a campaign to sell custom Pavers to sell to support community projects? By Pavers I mean bricks that are customized, usually with people's names, to be places at a location. Do you have any suggestions or resources from your experience? Thank you very much. Pam
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Funder Styles: Alignment towards Impact and Outcomes
Our guide to Funder Styles - Connecting Purpose to Evaluation was created to help our community of funders create alignment and set expectations around measurement and evaluation efforts. In our work with different funders over the years, we've noticed some organizations take a storytelling approach, others track with…
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Fund Types
Good afternoon, I have a few questions regarding field of interest and designated funds. Do any of you allow a field of interest fund to have more than one field of interest? Example: Smith Field of Interest fund, grants for animal welfare and education. Do any of you allow designated funds to benefit more than one agency?…
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Fund Types
Good afternoon, I have a few questions regarding field of interest and designated funds. Do any of you allow a field of interest fund to have more than one field of interest? Example: Smith Field of Interest fund, grants for animal welfare and education. Do any of you allow designated funds to benefit more than one agency?…
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Multi-fund signature page
I would like to ask if anybody has and/or is drafting fund agreements with a signature page to accommodate when donors would like to establish multiple funds? We recently had a donor that was interested in establishing a scholarship, field of interest (with multiple purposes,) and designated (with multiple purposes.) Thank…
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Grantwriting Goofs: How NOT to fill out an application
I've started collecting a few gems that I've found in grant reports, applications, and even in responses to emails. I use these examples when presenting to a local university class on grantwriting best practices (eg, what NOT to do). I thought I'd share them. Maybe you might have some other examples to share as well?…
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Use of Classy for fund-specific fundraising?
Is any other Community Foundation using Classy? We have an affiliate fund that is thinking about using Classy for their specific fundraising (P2P and crowdfunding) and we'd appreciate the opportunity to talk to another CF using it. Thanks!
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Connecting with donors
I"m curious what people are doing to connect with their donors while we are all working from home. Kent C. Weimer, Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy® Director of Trusts, Estates and Gift Planning Parkland Foundation Chair, National Association of Charitable Gift Planners
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Community Foundations with Annual Fundraising and/or Unrestricted Endowments
Hello Community! We are reassessing our donor recognition and looking for peers who recognize donors to their Annual Funds, Endowments, and/or initiatives run by the Foundation. In the past 24 months, our organization has ballooned with an Unrestricted Endowment and a rise in donors to our initiative work. Currently we…
