Are you an attorney, CPA, financial planner or other trusted advisor?

If you are an attorney, accountant, tax advisor or financial planner, you may be wondering if working with a community foundation is a way to help support your clients.

Attorney

Tax Professional

Financial Planner

CFCF has earned the trust of professional advisors throughout the Cedar Valley. Here’s why:


  • We work through you. You stay in control of your client relationship; CFCF is here to help you serve your clients’ charitable giving needs.
  • We partner with you providing support, information, and expertise around charitable giving options.
  • We help you build stronger relationships. Your clients will appreciate the charitable impact and tax advantages you help them with.
  • We help you connect across generations. When you help families establish a donor-advised fund at CFCF you begin an ongoing process of involvement with current and future generations.


Resources provide a general introduction and overview, but there’s no substitute for developing a relationship with CFCF today.

Professional Advisors and CFCF

Working Together for Their Clients and Their Communities

Professional advisors find themselves at the convergence of trying to assist their clients in managing and preserving their wealth while also assisting them with their desires to give back and leave a legacy in their community. Balancing these two priorities are affecting professional advisor practices in two significant ways:


Charitable Giving Advice

FIRST, advisors are incorporating charitable giving as an integral component in their financial and estate planning activities. Asking the question,“Do you have charitable giving interests?” is a standard planning practice for many advisors today. Charitable giving advice is a service welcomed by clients who expect an integrated approach to their wealth management.


Trusted Resource

SECOND, advisors are incorporating CFCF as a trusted resource in delivering charitable giving knowledge, maximum tax benefits and various products to their clients.

The Cedar Falls Community Foundation (CFCF) can support advisors and their clients through the charitable giving process.


Here’s how:

  • IDENTIFY your client’s charitable giving interests
  • MATCH personal charitable interests with tax planning needs
  • CREATE AND IMPLEMENT charitable plans that are integrated into major business, personal and financial decisions
  • FACILITATE complex forms of giving instruments (such as charitable remainder trusts)
  • PROVIDE information on community needs highlighting local agencies and programs that make a difference in the areas that clients care about most
  • DELIVER grant-making expertise and a range of administrative services related to charitable giving
  • SUPPORT ongoing and emerging charitable conversations with your clients
Endow Iowa Information here; state tax program
Talking to Your Clients About Giving


Significant giving opportunities often arise when clients are making major business, personal, and financial decisions. Iowa Community Foundations can work with you and your client to recommend the best charitable solution. The following are some typical scenarios:

Tax Planning

Your client wants to realize the charitable deduction under the 2017 tax law.

Your client can combine two or three years of charitable contributions in order to exceed the new, higher standard deduction in a given year. Bunching multiple years’ worth of donations in a single year allows your client to receive maximum tax benefits for their charitable contributions.

Preserving an Estate

Estate planning identifies significant taxes going to the IRS, but your client wants to be able to direct dollars for local benefit.

The community foundation can work with you and your client to reduce their taxable estate through a charitable bequest or other planned gift. Your client’s gift will create a legacy of caring in the community that stays true to their charitable intent forever.

Retiring in Comfort

Your client is concerned about running out of money during their lifetime and wants to continue being charitable.

Recommend establishing a life income gift (such as a charitable remainder trust) at their local community foundation that pays income potentially for life. Upon death, the gift can be distributed by the community foundation in accordance with their charitable interests.

Reluctant to Start a Conversation?


It's more common than you think. Some advisors are reluctant to begin a charitable giving conversation with their clients. They may be concerned about appearing to make a values judgment, especially if the client has not expressed charitable intentions.


Reasons to broach the subject of charitable giving:
  • a significant opportunity may be lost for a client and their community;
  • many individuals expect their professional advisors to bring up the subject if appropriate; and
  • clients may assume charitable giving is not an option if the subject is not raised.
Why talk to your clients about charitable giving?

  • Establishing a Private Foundation

    Your client is thinking about establishing a private foundation, but is looking for a simpler, more cost-effective alternative. The community foundation can help you and your client analyze the pros and cons of creating a donor-advised fund, a supporting organization, or private foundation.

  • Closely Held Stock

     Your client’s personal net worth is primarily tied up in a closely held company, but it’s important for them to give back to the community. Recommend establishing a donor- advised fund or planned gift; your client is eligible for a tax deduction measured by the fair market value of appreciated stock (less any planned gift value).

  • Sale or Disposition of Highly Held Stock

    Your client has appreciated stock and wants to use a portion of the gains for the charitable giving, but the identified charities are too small to accept direct stock gifts. Suggest establishing a fund at a community foundation with a gift of appreciated stock. Your client receives a tax deduction on the full market value, while avoiding the capital gains tax that would otherwise arise from the sale of the stock. Your client can even be involved in recommending uses for the gift, including the organizations and programs they care about most.

  • Sale of Business

    Your client owns highly appreciated stock in a company that is about to be acquired. The community foundation can work with you to suggest several ways to structure a charitable gift (including the use of planned giving techniques) to help your client reduce capital gains tax and minimize impact to the community.

  • Strategic Giving

    Your client is passionate about helping meet a specific community need and wants to make a meaningful gift. You and your client can work with community foundation grantmaking experts to understand community needs and programs and then your client can direct their charitable dollars to make the greatest impact.

  • Substantial IRA/ 401k Assets

    Your client wants to leave their estate to community and family, and has substantial assets in retirement accounts. The community foundation can help you and your client evaluate the most beneficial asset distribution to minimize taxes, giving more to your client’s heirs and preserving charitable intent.

CFCF wishes to thank the Iowa Community Foundation for its leadership. Much of what is available on this page was developed by them. You can explore their website at www.IowaCommunityFoundations.org.

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