Outright Gift During Lifetime 
You want to make a gift now. You may establish your own fund or contribute to an existing fund.

Bequest
Perhaps you want to make decisions on a new will. You have taken care of all the usual details, assigned sentimental possessions and provided for relatives. You can stipulate that all remaining assets go to your fund, significantly reducing the taxes otherwise payable by your estate. Your fund will support community needs in your name permanently. Or, you simply write a codicil (amendment) to your existing will. You state that in addition to or instead of certain provisions of that will, you would like to leave the remaining assets, or a specific dollar amount, to the Community Foundation. Your lawyer can assist you in making this change.

Charitable Remainder Trusts
You may have achieved a fairly comfortable accumulation of assets, but would like an income for yourself, your spouse or other beneficiaries for the rest of your lives. Ultimately you want charity to benefit from your estate. You can establish a charitable remainder trust with the remainder going to your fund. You receive a substantial income tax deduction for up to six years, and estate taxes will be reduced upon your death. You and your beneficiaries will receive an income for life. If you prefer, you can establish a charitable remainder trust in your will, providing a life income for surviving beneficiaries. Because of the charitable estate tax deduction, the surviving beneficiaries may receive a larger income than would otherwise be possible. There are two types of charitable remainder trusts:

Annuity Trust--a fixed income trust from which you or your beneficiaries will receive a set amount each year. 

Unitrust--a variable income trust from which you or your beneficiaries will receive a percentage of the trust's assets. Changes in the asset value of the trust will affect the level of your income each year. 

The minimum amount recommended for a charitable remainder trust is $50,000.

Charitable Lead Trust
You may have provided for your children, even though estate taxes will take a big portion of what you leave. Unfortunately, your grandchildren will benefit even less with the increasingly large estate taxes that will erode the proceeds of your estate. To avoid this, you can set up a charitable lead trust. You donate part of your estate to the trust now, and the annual distribution goes to your fund for a designated period of years. Your estate taxes are reduced and the property is not taxed to your children. When your grandchildren reach maturity, the trust terminates and the assets go to their benefit. The charity benefits during all those years and your grandchildren receive much more than they would have otherwise.

Pooled Income Fund
You may want to make a gift of an amount between $10,000 and $50,000 but you need the income from the gift during your lifetime or your spouse's lifetime. You may not want to incur the legal and accounting expenses of creating a trust in order to fulfill your intentions. A gift to the Community Foundation's Pooled Income Fund may then meet your needs. The Pooled Income Fund is very similar to a mutual fund in which individual gifts are "pooled" together and each donor then owns a percentage or units of the total fund. The donor receives the income from the fund during his lifetime or during the lifetime of his designee. At the time of death, the donor's portion of the Pooled Income Fund is then gifted to the Community Foundation to be used according to the donor's instructions. A minimum gift of $10,000 is required as the initial gift to the Pooled Income Fund. Additional gifts may be added at any time. Income is paid quarterly or annually, according to the donor's directions. There are no legal or accounting fees for making a gift to the Pooled Income Fund.

Gifts from an Estate or Trust
As the Personal Representative under a will, you are directed to allocate a certain amount of money for general charitable purposes. Some professional guidance may be helpful to you. You may set up a fund within the Community Foundation in the name of the deceased. With the approval of the court, if necessary, you arrange to have the charitable portion of the estate paid to this fund. The Community Foundation would then assume the responsibility of carrying out the deceased's charitable interests.

Assignment of Trust Fund Income
You may be the beneficiary of a trust that pays you a regular income. Even though you may give some of this income to charity, you may not receive maximum tax benefits. If you assign to your fund a portion of this annual income for the benefit of charity, you pay no further tax on this income. In addition, you may take an immediate income tax deduction for the value of this assignment. If this deduction is more than you can use in the year of the assignment, the excess may ordinarily be deducted over the five succeeding years.

Corporate Funds
Perhaps you are an executive in a business or corporation, responsible in part for corporate giving. How do you sift through the blizzard of appeals you get from all the charities? You can establish a fund at the Community Foundation, either in the name of the corporation or an anonymous name. The Foundation then distributes the gift for you, relieving you of this burden.

Transfer Your Foundation's Assets
If you are a trustee of a private foundation, you may establish a fund within the Community Foundation in the name of the private foundation. After arranging to transfer all or part of the assets of the foundation to the fund, the Community Foundation takes care of all the paperwork required by the government. Investments are handled by experienced people. (Taxes are no longer imposed, and the amount available for charity is increased.) You are secure in knowing that the fund will be administered permanently by the Community Foundation.

Transfer A Charitable Organization's Assets
Perhaps you are on the board of directors of a charitable organization which is terminating. You may create a fund within the Community Foundation, in the name of your organization. You apply to the courts for permission to liquidate the assets and transfer them to the fund, specifying that the income will be used only for grants in a similar field of interest. The mission of your organization is thereby continued in perpetuity.