Philanthropy and Charitable Trusts
As the world continues to develop and become a smaller community with many connections through the internet and industry there is a need for philanthropy more than ever. Philanthropy is the need to do good things for others and often takes the form of large donations of money or property in the form of charitable trusts. The desire to give back is to create a legacy to the world that your existence mattered and you contributed to the world.
The desire is the same for a corporation as for an individual as well. Developing a charitable trust, which is a specific trust established to run the interests of a particular organization or group of charities. The designated activities and funding is clearly stated to support all of the activities of the charitable trust and the money that it contributes. The successful establishment of a charity can leave a positive legacy for the world.
Community Grants
One great charitable foundation can be a community grant. Many large corporations have created these types of grants to provide charitable work to the community. They are generally limited to the communities that they exist in. These types of charitable foundations will contribute to the region that their people work in. This provides the community with benefits that enhance the lives of the employees, customers and local neighbourhoods of their corporate presence. A community organization can benefit by submitting a request for a grant which explains how the funds will be used and how the community will benefit as a whole. These types of legacies can bring a long term improvement to an area by contributing to a specific cause.
There might be community grants issued to help the homeless in a particular community through the funding of a program that currently exists. Some corporations like Walmart contribute these sorts of grants all the time and the neat part is that the grants are awarded by a group of associates. This type of inclusion can allow for all employees to feel like a larger part of the community and charitable organizations to have direct connections with the individuals involved.
Employee Volunteer Grants
When it comes to charitable trusts that can be established one great way to manage giving is for a corporation to establish an employee volunteer grant. This type of giving comes in several different variables. One of the most common forms philanthropists follow in order to establish this type of charity is known as the “dollars for doers” program. This means that the corporation provides a monetary charitable donation to an eligible charity in complete recognition of the charitable work of someone in their organization.
Team Volunteer Grants are another type of employee volunteer grants that corporations can institute to give back to the community. These are incentive laden grants that challenge employees to organize charitable works to provide a legacy for the future of the region. A popular program is run by Kohl’s that encourages groups of employees to volunteer at the same place and when their hours are documented the corporation makes a monetary donation to those people. One thing for certain is that charitable organizations definitely benefit from these types of arrangements.
The Benefits of Charitable Trusts
When a charitable trust is established then it is going to be able to leave a powerful legacy behind that will live on for many years and in some cases for all time. Corporations can leave these types of trusts as can ordinary citizens. This is a more powerful way for the wealthy to leave an influence on those who follow behind. This is a common path that philanthropists take.
One of the biggest advantages that is available to a charitable trust is that they are not going to have to pay any type of capital gains tax or in fact any kind of estate tax. That means the money will be able to be used for the purpose intended rather than to be eaten up by the government. They are an ideal place for the assets of an estate which can grow significantly o0ver time. This means that bonds and stocks can be added to these types of places. The money that would have been used to pay the taxes of the assets are able to remain as a part of the estate and that makes the ability for change to be much more powerful.
Property can also be placed into the charitable trust and that also provides benefits to the trust as it can be used as an immediate tax deduction for the trust curator to take advantage of. Tax laws are continually in flux so a smart estate planner has to take the time to research all of the types of benefits to make sure that the estate planning to leave a charitable trust provides all of the benefits that you are looking for.
Can There Be A Better Way To Give?
When you start to look at all the ways that a charity trust can develop a legacy it really seems to be a no brainer. Some of the most important works in philanthropy have been accomplished by charitable trusts that have funded a whole lot of different charitable activities. Today it is just as simple to establish a charitable trust that will benefit all of your local favourite charities and to establish your personal legacy without too much problem.
Many people and entities choose a corporate trustee to run the charitable trust. This is under the assumption that the person will be an expert in how to manage assets and be able to mauver assets into a more financially powerful worthwhile group of charitable contributions. They can also contribute to the process of legacy fundraising.
No matter what the final organization of the charitable trust it is vital that a person who is interested in creating a legacy plans all of their estate properly so that all of their financial effort will be used to solve the problem or advance a program that they believe in. There should be many people who are looking for this type of thing. A real difference in the world can be created and a person can have their philanthropic interests change the world.