Private foundations are charities that ordinarily rely for their support on a single company, family, or individual. Most private foundations serve their charitable purposes by making grants rather than conducting their own direct charitable operations. They are governed by stricter legal rules than public charities, and they often face difficult and highly technical legal compliance issues. Our lawyers help private foundations to navigate these regulatory complexities. We help founders, board members, and foundation staff to learn the rules so that they can focus their energies on philanthropy and avoid colliding with legal obstacles.
We also help companies develop effective legal structures for their community benefit activities, often including a company foundation.
Co-panelist: Eric Stephenson, Cordes Foundation
Co-panelist: Rehana Nathoo, Case Foundation
Chicago, IL
The most common manner in which individuals make charitable contributions is by making gifts or bequests outright to institutions and causes important to the donor. An alternative is to establish a charitable vehicle to receive the donor’s assets in one or more lump-sum payments, and then make grants/distributions to operating charities over time. As all of the interests in such an entity are dedicated to charity, they are eligible to receive tax exemption from the Internal Revenue Service and the California Franchise Tax Board.
This summary of the tax rules for private foundations will be published shortly by the Council on Foundations as Chapter 4 of The Rules of the Road: A Guide to the Law of Charities in the United States, by Betsy Buchalter Adler, Ingrid Mittermaier, and David Levitt.
This letter could be important in the event that a Model C fiscal sponsor disburses grant funds for the benefit of a grantee, not by cash grants to the grantee, but by writing checks directly to the grantee’s vendors.
Short form of Fiscal Sponsorship Grant Agreement between a fiscal sponsor and a Model C fiscally sponsored project.
Share this page by clicking on one of the social networks below.