As we celebrate Fall and relief from our smoky summer, thoughts turn to the coming season of giving. We ponder how best to allocate our philanthropic giving for reasons of the heart and perhaps our accountant has urged us to maximize our tax deductions. The Oregon Community Foundation (OCF) offers creative and impactful solutions to support the philanthropy of generous Oregonians.
Our goal is to help individuals, families and businesses create charitable funds to support their communities and causes they care about. Unlike most community foundations, OCF doesn’t center on a single town or region: we represent the whole state of Oregon. As OCF is one of the top ten largest community foundations in America, we have the reputation and the resources to have real impact.
Our successes today are the result of a four decade journey. Forty years ago, OCF was founded by a small group of committed Oregonians led by Willamette Industries’ William Swindells. This group realized that they could have deeper impact and bridge traditional divides by connecting Oregonians across our state’s diverse communities.
From Mr. Swindell’s original gift of $63,000, OCF’s endowment has grown to more than $1.8 billion, and we have awarded over $1 billion in grants and scholarships. We have more than 2,000 funds under management – funds set up by generous Oregonians in every corner of the state, some with large assets, but many with modest amounts to give. What unifies our diverse donor corps is simple: they share a desire to give back to the state and to their communities and they want an efficient and informed way to practice their philanthropy.
OCF works in a straightforward way:
we help Oregonians establish funds so they can create a charitable legacy for their family and support causes they care about, either while still living or as a part of their estate;
we invest those funds to maximize their grantmaking value, while protecting their long-term purchasing power;
and, with the return on these investments, we distribute generally more than $100 million per year in grants and scholarships to thousands of nonprofit organizations and students.
OCF offers many different types of funds, including donor advised funds and scholarship funds. We accept many different types of assets, and an OCF fund can be the beneficiary of the IRA charitable rollover. Because our funds are designed to be permanent, we also help build intergenerational philanthropy as younger family members learn and practice philanthropy.
A significant part of our role is to provide our donors with education and guidance around particular issues and causes. We build our recommendations on the donors’ passions and on research, evaluations, site visits and long-term knowledge of Oregon’s nonprofit community.
It is an honor for OCF to partner with our donors to create a philanthropic legacy for Oregon. If you are interested in learning how you can create an OCF Fund, please call Julie Gregory, Regional Director and Philanthropic Advisor, 541-382-1170.
www.oregoncf.org
