Disaster philanthropy: Your clients and the important role of individual philanthropy

Sadly, your philanthropic clients have likely grown accustomed to making charitable donations to support disaster relief. Individual donations provide critical resources to help communities recover from the many disasters–weather, fire, humanitarian, disease, war–that occur each year.

In the wake of Hurricane Ian, your clients may ask you about their options to support those affected by the storm. We encourage you to reach out to the team at the Lincoln Community Foundation. We can connect your donors with a variety of options for giving that are trustworthy and effective. Indeed, disaster relief funding is frequently coordinated by community foundations, which are widely viewed as one of the very best vehicles to help donors provide financial support to relief efforts. Individual giving is critically important to any disaster relief effort, and LCF can help your clients make an immediate, powerful, and positive impact on the lives of those affected by Hurricane Ian or any disaster.

Especially heartwarming is that many donors are now exploring ways to help improve a community’s readiness for disaster response, including building reserve funds for future disaster relief and bolstering emergency preparedness infrastructure for medical care, food, clothing, and shelter delivered by a network of local, on-the-ground nonprofit organizations. We are happy to work with your clients to establish field-of-interest funds or unrestricted funds at LCF to ensure that the people in our community remain as safe and supported as possible when disaster strikes. Disaster-preparedness field-of-interest or unrestricted funds at the community foundation can be especially attractive because these funds are qualified recipients of QCDs (Qualified Charitable Distributions) from clients’ IRAs.

We look forward to helping your clients improve the lives of those affected by disasters both here in Lincoln and across the nation and world.