Updates from Your Community Foundation Team for October 2026
Hello from the community foundation!
We are honored to work with so many of you who have already established a fund at the community foundation or supported a community foundation initiative. We’re also excited to be talking with lots of individuals, families, and businesses who are exploring how to get involved with the community foundation to organize charitable giving and make a difference in the causes you care about. Thank you!
Year-end is getting closer, which means charitable giving is likely showing up more often in your inbox, your mailbox, and your conversations with tax and estate planning advisors. The community foundation is always happy to help you cut through the noise with practical ideas for charitable giving.
It’s a whirlwind: Sorting through year-end charitable giving tips
Year-end giving advice is everywhere—but which decisions really deserve your attention? We’ve boiled it down to five action steps to help you focus on what you want to accomplish, which assets you give, the new 2026 tax rules, opportunities involving your IRA, and why now is the time to get started.
High fives for IRAs, QCDs, and charitable planning
IRAs and other retirement accounts can be powerful charitable planning tools, but the rules can be confusing. We’re sharing five important things to know about QCDs and retirement assets—plus a bonus reminder about how the community foundation can work alongside you and your advisors.
Trust in action: Your favorite nonprofits know what they need
What if one of the best ways to support your favorite nonprofits is to trust the people closest to the work? We’re taking a practical look at trust-based philanthropy, including unrestricted and multi-year giving, listening to nonprofits, and ways the community foundation can help you put these ideas into action.
As always, thank you for the opportunity to work together as you support the causes and organizations that matter to you. Please reach out anytime—we’d love to hear what you’re thinking about as year-end approaches and learn how we can help.
—Your community foundation
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It’s a whirlwind: Sorting through year-end charitable giving tips
If your email inbox—and even your actual mailbox—is any indication, year-end must be right around the corner! You’ve likely already started to get reminders, tax tips, charitable giving strategies, and appeals from organizations you care about. It can be a lot! The good news is that thoughtful year-end giving does not have to be complicated. Your community foundation can help you sort through the noise, coordinate with your tax and financial advisors, and focus on the decisions that really matter.
In that spirit, here are five action steps to help you make sense of the communications you’re receiving:
Think about what you want your giving to accomplish.
Before you talk with your advisors about tax deductions and which assets to give to a community foundation or other charity, start with the most important question: What do you want your charitable dollars to do? Perhaps you want to continue supporting the organizations you give to every year. Maybe you’d like to respond to an emerging community need, involve your children or grandchildren in giving, or set aside resources now for charitable decisions you’ll make later.
The community foundation can help you begin your giving with the end in mind. We can pull together information on the organizations and causes you care about, help you identify organizations you might not yet know about, and share what we’re seeing and learning about our community’s needs.
Pay attention to what you give, not just how much.
Writing a check or using a credit card may be convenient, but cash is not necessarily the most tax-efficient asset to give. If you own publicly traded stock or other assets that have appreciated significantly, donating those assets directly to your fund at the community foundation or other charity may allow you to avoid capital gains tax that could apply if you sold the asset first, while potentially qualifying for a charitable deduction based on fair market value, subject to applicable rules and limitations.
This is an area where your community foundation can be especially helpful. The community foundation can accept not only publicly traded securities but also more complex assets, such as closely held business interests or real estate. Before selling a highly appreciated asset, talk with your advisors and the community foundation. A conversation before the sale can open up options that may disappear once the transaction is complete.
Take another look at the 2026 tax rules.
This year brought important changes to the federal tax rules for charitable giving. Among them, taxpayers who itemize generally can deduct charitable contributions only to the extent the contributions exceed 0.5% of adjusted gross income. For taxpayers in the highest federal income tax bracket, a new limitation also generally reduces the maximum federal income tax benefit of itemized deductions from 37% to 35%.
At the same time, taxpayers who do not itemize may now claim a deduction of up to $1,000 for individuals and $2,000 for married couples filing jointly for qualifying cash gifts to certain public charities. (Note that gifts to donor-advised funds, private foundations, and certain other organizations do not qualify for this new deduction.)
What does all of that mean for you? Potentially, that the timing and structure of your giving deserve another look. For example, some donors may benefit from “bunching” several years of charitable contributions into a single year rather than giving the same amount every year. Your community foundation can work alongside your tax advisor to help you explore approaches that fit both your charitable plans and your tax situation.
If you are 70½ or older, don't overlook your IRA.
A qualified charitable distribution, or QCD, can be one of the most useful charitable planning tools available to eligible IRA owners. In 2026, eligible IRA owners age 70½ and older may direct up to $111,000 from an IRA. A QCD is excluded from taxable income and, for donors who are subject to required minimum distributions, can count toward satisfying the RMD.
There are important rules about where QCDs can go. For example, they cannot be made to donor-advised funds. But the community foundation offers other types of funds that can receive QCDs, including, in many cases, designated funds that support particular charities, field-of-interest funds focused on particular causes, and unrestricted funds that allow the community foundation to respond to changing community needs.
If you are eligible for a QCD, ask your community foundation and advisors whether it makes sense to incorporate one into your year-end giving.
Don't wait until the last week of December—please!
Perhaps the simplest year-end tip is also one of the most important: Start now.
Stock gifts take time to transfer. Gifts of real estate, closely held business interests, and other complex assets may require appraisals, due diligence, and coordination among multiple advisors. Even a relatively straightforward charitable plan can become more difficult when everyone is racing against a December 31 deadline.
Now is the time to take stock of what you’ve already given this year, what you still hope to accomplish, and which assets might make the most sense to use.
And you don't need to figure it all out yourself. Bring the community foundation team into the conversation with your CPA, financial advisor, or estate planning attorney. We can help you explore your options, coordinate the charitable pieces of the plan, and keep the focus where it belongs: using your generosity to accomplish what matters most to you.
High fives for IRAs, QCDs, and charitable planning
At the community foundation, we are honored to talk with donors and fund holders every single day about favorite causes and how best to support those causes, whether through a donor-advised fund, an unrestricted gift to the community foundation, a legacy gift to particular organizations or to the community foundation itself, and everything in between.
One of the most common areas of confusion (understandably!) for donors and fund holders is how to use IRAs and other retirement accounts to further charitable goals. And it’s an important topic because Americans who’ve been in the workforce for a few decades have watched their 401(k)s, IRAs, and other retirement accounts grow nicely! Retirement accounts are a major asset on many families’ balance sheets.
Our team understands how tricky it is to keep track of all the rules, and we are here to work alongside your tax and estate planning advisors to help you develop a charitable giving plan that achieves your goals, including ways to use your IRAs and other retirement accounts. Please consider sharing the five important points (plus a bonus!) below with your advisors as year-end approaches.
Age 70½ is still an important charitable giving milestone.
If you have reached age 70½, you may be eligible to make a Qualified Charitable Distribution, or QCD, directly from your IRA to an eligible charitable organization.
This opportunity begins even though Required Minimum Distributions generally do not begin until later—at age 73 or 75, depending on your birth year. In other words, you don't have to wait until RMDs begin to start using QCDs for your charitable giving.
The 2026 QCD limit is $111,000 per taxpayer.
The annual QCD limit is indexed for inflation and is $111,000 in 2026. If you are married and both you and your spouse meet the eligibility requirements and have your own IRAs, each of you has a separate limit.
Unlike a conventional charitable contribution, a QCD generally is excluded from your taxable income rather than claimed as a charitable income tax deduction. And if you are already taking RMDs, a qualifying QCD can count toward your RMD.
This can make a QCD particularly attractive if you don't itemize deductions—or if you simply would like to use a portion of your IRA to support the organizations and causes you care about.
Make sure the money travels the right path.
The mechanics matter. To qualify as a QCD, the distribution must be made directly from your IRA to an eligible charitable organization. Generally, you can't withdraw the money yourself, deposit it into your bank account, and then write a check to charity and receive QCD treatment.
There is another important limitation: Under current law, donor-advised funds generally cannot receive QCDs. If you have a donor-advised fund at the community foundation, however, don't assume that means the community foundation can't help. Other types of charitable funds may be eligible to receive QCDs.
Please reach out to the community foundation team before initiating the transfer. We can work with you and your advisors to determine which options may fit your charitable goals.
Keep an eye on Washington.
QCD rules could become even more flexible! If you enjoy tracking legislation—knowing, of course, that proposed legislation may or may not become law—two bipartisan proposals are worth watching. The Charity Parity Act (H.R. 8783) (Senate version, S. 4511) would allow eligible donors to make QCDs directly from certain employer-sponsored retirement plans, such as 401(k)s and 403(b)s, rather than requiring charitable distributions to come from an eligible IRA. Another bipartisan proposal, the IRA Charitable Rollover Facilitation and Enhancement Act of 2026 (S. 3975), would allow QCDs to donor-advised funds.
Neither proposal is current law, so don't count on these expanded options just yet. But both are worth watching, especially if you have substantial retirement assets or use a donor-advised fund as an important part of your charitable giving.
Don't forget about your IRA when you're planning your legacy.
QCDs allow you to use retirement assets for charitable giving during your lifetime. But there is another opportunity that is easy to overlook: You can name a charitable organization, including your fund at the community foundation or even the community foundation itself, as a beneficiary of an IRA or other retirement account.
Retirement accounts can be particularly attractive assets to leave to charity. Traditional retirement assets left to individual heirs may carry income tax consequences, while a tax-exempt charitable organization generally does not pay income tax when it receives those assets.
And the process may be surprisingly simple. You may be able to leave all or a percentage of a retirement account to charity simply by updating your beneficiary designation, without changing your will or revocable trust. Of course, coordinate any beneficiary designation with your overall estate plan and review it with your legal, tax, and financial advisors.
And a bonus point: You don't have to figure this out on your own.
Retirement assets sit at the intersection of tax planning, financial planning, estate planning, and charitable giving. That's one reason we love working alongside your professional advisors. Whether you're considering a QCD before year end, thinking about including charitable giving in your beneficiary designations, or simply wondering whether your retirement assets could help you accomplish more for the causes you care about, please reach out. We're here to help you explore the possibilities.
Thank you for the opportunity to work together!
Trust in action: Your favorite nonprofits know what they need
If you’ve supported a particular charitable organization for many years, and perhaps even served on its board of directors, you are likely familiar with some basic concepts of “trust-based philanthropy,” even if you didn’t know that’s what it is called.
As a consistent supporter of the nonprofit organizations you love, you know an organization’s chances of success are greatest when its leadership and talented staff can deploy resources in the ways they believe will best fulfill the mission. This, in turn, sometimes translates into an organization placing a high value on what are called “unrestricted” donations, meaning that the organization can use the dollars where they are needed most.
A simple example of this is when a donor writes a check to a food pantry and instructs that the money be used to purchase canned goods, but the food pantry’s leadership knows that what they really need at the moment is to fix the roof or hire a staff member to help sort food before the pantry will be in a position to accept more canned goods.
Indeed, multi-year, unrestricted funding remains a hallmark of trust-based philanthropy because it gives nonprofits flexibility to respond to changing circumstances, invest in organizational capacity, and plan beyond the next grant cycle. But unrestricted gifts are only one component of the overall trust-based philanthropy concept.
The broader model is designed to strengthen the relationships among donors, funders, nonprofits, and the communities they serve. The Trust-Based Philanthropy Project identifies six core grantmaking practices: providing multi-year unrestricted funding; doing the homework rather than requiring nonprofits to repeatedly prove themselves through burdensome applications; simplifying paperwork; communicating transparently; soliciting and acting on feedback; and offering support beyond the check.
At its heart, though, the idea is simpler than the terminology might suggest: The people closest to the work often know things that donors and funders do not.
That does not mean donors should stop asking questions or paying attention to results. In fact, accountability has become an important part of the ongoing conversation about trust-based philanthropy. Advocates of the approach emphasize that trust and accountability are not opposites. Rather, the goal is to move toward mutual accountability, where nonprofits can speak candidly about challenges and changing circumstances and donors can learn alongside them instead of relying exclusively on restrictions, applications, and reports.
For an individual donor, you don’t have to adopt an entire philanthropic philosophy to put some of these ideas to work. Consider asking yourself a few simple questions when you support an organization you know and trust. Could an unrestricted gift be more useful than one designated for a particular program? Would a multi-year commitment help the organization plan more effectively? Are you asking the organization what it needs—or telling it what you think it needs? And are there ways you can help beyond your charitable dollars, perhaps through connections, expertise, or advocacy?
So what can you do? For starters, the community foundation is here to help! Here are a few ways we can help you dip your toe into trust-based philanthropy.
We can provide insight into local nonprofits and community needs.
Because the community foundation team works closely with nonprofit organizations across our region, we can help you learn more about the nonprofits addressing the issues you care about, including their missions, leadership, current priorities, and the challenges they are working to solve.
We can help you listen and learn before you give.
Sometimes the most valuable question a donor can ask a nonprofit organization is simply, “What do you need most?” We can help facilitate conversations with nonprofit organizations so that you can better understand where your charitable dollars could be most useful—whether that means supporting a particular program, providing unrestricted funding, or making a longer-term commitment.
We can help you create a giving approach that provides both flexibility and confidence.
A donor-advised or other type of fund at the community foundation can give you a convenient home for your charitable giving while allowing you to recommend grants over time. Our team can also help you conduct due diligence, evaluate opportunities, and stay connected with the organizations you support—so that trust does not mean giving without information, but rather giving from a place of knowledge and partnership.
We look forward to our next conversation!
The team at the community foundation is honored to serve as a resource and sounding board as you build your charitable plans and pursue your philanthropic objectives for making a difference in the community. This newsletter is provided for informational purposes only. It is not intended as legal, accounting, or financial planning advice. Please consult your tax or legal advisor to learn how this information might apply to your own situation.