Fostering trust and making a difference

By Sandi Hansen 

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 can sometimes be hard to achieve. 

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? 

At the Lincoln Community Foundation, we can help in situations like these and many others like them. 

Here are three examples: 

–If you’ve established a donor-advised fund at LCF to organize your giving, lean on our team for insights into which organizations are best suited to achieve your charitable goals at any given time. We stay up to date on local nonprofits, 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 organization but you’d rather not give the money outright, you could consider setting up a designated fund at LCF to make distributions to the charity according to parameters you set. This is a wonderful way to provide permanent support for the organizations you care most about, helping them achieve long-term sustainability and allowing your legacy to be connected to them forever. Grants are made annually to the recipient organizations from the “spendable” portion of designated funds.

–If you’d like the team at LCF to help out even more, you might consider establishing a field-of-interest fund so that the Foundation 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 Lincoln 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 Foundation. 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.  

LCF 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 Lincoln 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.  

For more information, reach out to us at 402-474-2345 or lcf@lcf.org.