donor designated funds

Provide a long-term, growing stream of income for an organization you value without adding investment management to its priorities.

it’s easy to do

Contact the Foundation to create an endowment fund for the benefit of a designated organization. We’ll work with you to develop a letter of agreement identifying the beneficiary organization, the fund name, and the amount of the gift you’ll make to establish the fund. The agreement will convey your intentions in the event the designated organization dissolves, merges into another organization, or changes its mission. 

The minimum gift to create a donor designated fund is $10,000, but we counsel you to think of $25,000 as a starting point so the fund beneficiary will receive a more useful distribution, even in the first year. Creating a fund for another organization creates tax benefits similar to other charitable gifts; consult your advisor for details. 

how your fund can grow

Like all ECF endowments, donor designated funds are invested to provide income and to grow over time, so if your plan is to provide gifts for anything other than general operating support, we will incorporate provisions in the agreement to ensure your goals are achieved when the fund has doubled or tripled in size. Of course you or other community members can continue to add to the fund. 

current donor designated funds 

View the Fund List page for a list of all of the funds including scholarship and award funds. 

advantage of creating your fund with ECF

Whatever changes may take place years from now, the Foundation’s Articles of Incorporation give the ECF board latitude to modify the fund purpose in the event distributions to the original beneficiary become unnecessary, impossible, or inconsistent with community needs — without going to court to do so. Thus the charitable intentions you set forth in the fund agreement will guide the use of your fund in perpetuity, even if changes take place in the original beneficiary.