Individuals/Families

Types of Funds

Introduction

The Community Foundation for Ireland serves a variety of donors who share a common concern – supporting local communities and charities that matter to them. Through The Foundation, individuals, families, businesses, non-profit organisations or other foundations can create permanent charitable funds. To accommodate the various interests and needs of donors, we offer four different types of funds. Regardless of the fund you choose, you or other donors may add to it at any time.

1 Donor-Advised Funds

A donor-advised fund is a charitable giving vehicle administered by a third party (such as The Community Foundation for Ireland) and created for the purpose of managing charitable donations on behalf of an organisation, family, or individual. A donor-advised fund offers the opportunity to create an easy-to-establish, low cost, flexible vehicle for charitable giving as an alternative to direct giving or a private foundation. Donors enjoy, seeing the impacts of their giving, administrative convenience, cost savings and tax advantages by conducting their grantmaking through the fund.

2 Unrestricted Funds

If your interests are broad and you are primarily concerned with meeting the most urgent needs of the community as they change from year to year, an unrestricted fund is the most effective way to facilitate this. Such a fund allows the highly qualified Board of Directors of The Foundation, full discretion to determine how income from your fund can be directed to the most immediate and pressing challenges facing the community – now and in the future.

3 Field of Interest Funds

If you want the income from your fund to be dispersed to a specific area of interest or concern (for example cancer research or austism etc), a field of interest fund will achieve your goals. You would use a fund of this kind to support a number of different organisations concerned with your area of interest and our qualified team can assist and advise you in order to find these various organisations.

4 Designated Funds

Through a designated fund, you choose one or more organisations to receive distributions from your fund. If you wish to support an initiative in your community, for example, a designated fund ensures that all grants will be made to that organisation at specified stages. If the benefiting organisation ceases to exist in future years, The Community Foundation will direct the income from your fund to another purpose or organisation that matches as close as possible your original intentions.