Unique Ways to Give

Don’t get us wrong. We love it when New Jersey families create philanthropic funds with cash. It’s the core of what we do and it drives philanthropy across our state.

But those who use more complex assets – like real estate or closely held stock – to create funds hold a special place at the Community Foundation. We just love the creative ways New Jerseyans give back.

Here are a few examples of unique gifts to the Community Foundation:

• At the beginning of the year, we helped an individual roll over his IRA to CFNJ. He was already financially well-off in retirement, so he wanted to find a way to put the IRA’s dollars to better use. By rolling over an amount below $100,000 (and because he was above 70½ years of age), the individual was able to keep the distributions from counting as taxable income. This meant that more dollars would be available for his ultimate charitable goal, which was creating a permanent endowment for his local church.

• Over the course of the year, we received more than $30 million in grants from donor advised funds held elsewhere (mostly the big financial firms). You wouldn’t think it, right? There’s a perception out there that dollars in one philanthropic fund can’t really move to another. But for donors who want their philanthropic dollars closer to home – or closer to the communities they care about – it is actually a fairly straightforward process. All $30 million received from funds outside of CFNJ will be put to good use in our state and beyond.

• Transferring dollars from one community foundation to another can sometimes be more tricky. But hey, circumstances change. People move or retire in another state. On behalf of a New Jerseyan with a fund in another state’s community foundation, we facilitated the process to bring those dollars home. But keep in mind, for the New Jerseyans moving out of state (Florida, the Carolinas), we are still immensely proud to steward those dollars.

• No list of unique gifts would be complete without a gift of real estate. So how about a condominium in Washington, DC? Life on Capitol Hill was no longer for this New Jersey family who gifted their condo to us and used the dollars to pursue a new passion: investing in much-needed medical technologies in the Third World. We take in more real estate than you might think, offering donors a fair market value tax deduction and, in many cases, the avoidance of capital gains tax.