Tips to wrap up 2024, matters of trust, and generational impact
Hello from the Morton Community Foundation!
The year is winding down! Where did 2024 go?
The Morton Community Foundation is here to help you navigate your charitable giving priorities all year round, and especially during the giving season when we know many of you are beginning to turn your attention to tax planning and ensuring that you'll meet your charitable goals before the end of December.
Here’s what’s trending:
Year-end is fast approaching! GivingTuesday is Tuesday, December 3. We hope you’ll consider a gift on that special day of giving. We’re providing several savvy tips to consider as you evaluate where you stand with your charitable giving goals for 2024 and review your tax situation with your advisors. Whether you’ve already established a fund at the MCF or are considering it, we look forward to hearing from you.
The Morton Community Foundation is the Morton area’s trusted source for all things philanthropy. We are honored to serve you and your family as you pursue the charitable endeavors that mean the most to you. Learn how our team helps structure your giving in ways that respect your desire for trust in the impact your dollars can make.
Charitable giving is important to couples whether or not they have children. Discover how the Morton Community Foundation can help you serve your clients’ charitable intentions to support our community across generations in situations where heirs will be involved and in situations where there are no heirs. We’re here for everyone!
Wishing you all the best for a safe and happy Thanksgiving!
With gratitude…
Your Morton Community Foundation Staff
Scott Witzig, Executive Director
Darcy Roecker, Administrative Manager
Several savvy tips to wrap up 2024 (Special note to Caterpillar Employees & Retirees)
Year-end is closing in, and it’s easy to get overwhelmed by all the advice floating around about what to do before December 31. We’re making it super easy for you! Here are four reminders that typically are among the most important for year-end charitable giving.
Give stock. Evaluate your highly-appreciated stock positions and use these assets to give to your fund at the Morton Community Foundation, coordinating with your tax and financial advisors to optimize your 2024 goals. Appreciated assets generally are far better charitable gifts than cash because you not only can take advantage of the income tax deduction, but also you can avoid capital gains tax. When you donate stock, you’ll want to notify us of your gift, so we can be looking for the transfer in our account, immediately liquidate, and place the proceeds in the fund of your choice at the MCF.
Use your donor-advised fund. Consider deploying a “bundling” or “bunching” technique by making a gift to your donor-advised fund at the Morton Community Foundation this calendar year that allows you to leverage itemized deductions (the standard deduction is very high, at least at the moment), and then use your donor-advised fund over the next few years to support your favorite charities.
Explore a QCD. If you are age 70 ½ or older, you should look into making a Qualified Charitable Distribution (“QCD”) to a designated or field-of-interest fund at the community foundation. Each spouse can give up to $105,000 in 2024, and the distributions will satisfy your RMDs if you’ve also reached that age. CLICK HERE to find out why the QCD is so powerful. Note that your donor-advised fund is not an eligible recipient, but there are lots of other ways you can leverage this tax-savvy giving opportunity.
Are you a Caterpillar employee or retiree? In support of Giving Tuesday, the Caterpillar Foundation will provide a limited-time 2:1 match through their Matching Gifts Program for global employee and U.S. retiree gifts made December 2-6, 2024 (or once the match total reaches $2M USD). This includes donations to any of the 100+ individual endowment funds with the MCF. Since the total dollars available for the 2:1 match are limited to $2M USD, you’ll want to get your donations made as early as possible, preferably Monday, Dec 2. You may donate up to a total of $500 in increments of no less than $25. Example: A donation to your favorite MCF fund of $500, will trigger a $1,000 donation to that same fund by the Caterpillar Foundation, for a total gift of $1,500.
November is the time to set things in motion so you don’t get caught up in the year-end rush. Reach out to the Morton Community Foundation today! We are here for you!
Fostering trust and making a difference
Many people are not aware of the extent to which America’s charitable organizations help improve quality of life in our communities. From social services to the arts, virtually every aspect of our lives is touched by the work of nonprofits. Indeed, the gifts Americans give to charity every year total more than $557 billion and provide critical support for nearly 1.5 million organizations that are helping communities thrive.
Research shows that trust continues to be an important factor in charitable giving. Unfortunately, high levels of trust sometimes can be hard to achieve; 73% of donors surveyed said they felt that it is very important to trust a charity before giving, but only 19% say they highly trust charities.
So what should you do if you know you want to support a particular organization but you’ve not quite yet gained a level of trust to go “all in?” Or what if you want to support an overall area of community need but you’re not sure which organizations are best aligned with the results you want your charitable gifts to achieve? Or what if you’re fairly certain you know the specific organizations that are addressing your areas of interest right now, but you’re concerned that this “fit” might change over time as needs shift and charities evolve?
The Morton Community Foundation can help in situations like these and many others like them. Here are four examples:
If you’ve established a donor-advised fund at the Morton Community Foundation to organize your giving, lean on the MCF for insights into which charities are best suited to achieve your goals for impact at any given time. Our team stays up to date on local charities, their priorities, and their programs and staff. We can provide information and insights to help you make informed decisions.
If you’re committed to supporting a specific charity but you’d rather not give the money outright, you could consider setting up a designated fund at the Morton Community Foundation to make distributions to the charity according to parameters you set. Because the charity receives the money in increments every year, charitable dollars remaining in the fund are protected from the charity’s creditors if the charity were to fall on hard times.
If you’d like the Morton Community Foundation to help out even more, you might consider establishing a field-of-interest fund so that the MCF can deploy its expertise in selecting charities that are best suited from year to year to achieve your goals for community impact.
To ensure that the mission of the Morton Community Foundation itself stays strong and that dollars will flow to support critical community needs for generations, you can establish an unrestricted fund at the MCF. You can add to the unrestricted fund during your lifetime, such as through gifts of appreciated stock, and you can also include a gift to the fund in your estate plan through your will or an IRA beneficiary designation.
The Morton Community Foundation is unique in its structure as a perpetual institution governed by an independent board of directors. Our mission is to improve the quality of life in the Morton area across generations by connecting donors to the causes they care about and leading on critical community issues. We’re honored to work alongside you and your family as you build trust with the charitable organizations that are making a difference for everyone who lives and works in the community we love.
Generational impact, with or without children
At the Morton Community Foundation, we’re honored to work with our donors and fund holders to achieve a wide range of charitable giving priorities often involving multiple charitable giving vehicles. It’s not uncommon, for example, for an individual’s or couple’s “portfolio” of philanthropy with the Morton Community Foundation to look something like this:
A donor-advised fund to make it easy to donate appreciated stock and organize annual giving to favorite charities.
A designated fund to support the mission of a particular charity over the long term, especially because when one spouse reaches the age of 70 ½, the designated fund can receive tax-savvy Qualified Charitable Distributions from IRAs.
A beneficiary designation on an IRA to leave those assets to an unrestricted fund at the Morton Community Foundation, avoiding both income tax and estate tax, so that the fund can support the MCF’s mission in perpetuity.
What’s more, many people don’t realize that a mix of charitable giving vehicles works well to achieve your charitable goals whether or not you have children. For example, if you have children, you can work with the community foundation to explore naming them as successor advisors on your donor-advised fund to carry on your philanthropic priorities beyond your lifetime. If you don’t have children, your donor-advised fund can roll into your designated fund or unrestricted fund following your death.
Changing demographics are becoming a catalyst for the Morton Community Foundation’s increased role in many estate plans. For example, not having children is becoming more common, both among millennials and older people. According to a study conducted by the Pew Research Center, 20% of U.S. adults age 50 and older hadn’t had children. In addition, children of affluent parents tend to move away, which means that many parents embrace the notion that working with the community foundation can help children maintain ties to their childhood community even across generations.
Indeed, many couples who don’t have children and couples who do have children feel a strong sense of peace of mind knowing that the Morton Community Foundation will be involved with their charitable legacy long after their lifetimes, whether through advising children and grandchildren or administering charitable bequests for maximum community impact. The Morton Community Foundation always has its finger on the pulse of the greatest needs in the Morton area and the nonprofits that are meeting those needs at any given point in time, whether right now or decades in the future.
Please reach out to the team at the Morton Community Foundation to learn more about how we can help you leave a legacy across generations, whether or not you have children. We’re here to help!
The Morton Community Foundation is honored to serve as a resource and sounding board as you build your charitable plans and pursue your philanthropic objectives for making a difference in the community. This newsletter is provided for informational purposes only. It is not intended as legal, accounting, or financial planning advice. Please consult your tax or legal advisor to learn how this information might apply to your own situation.
