We take managing your philanthropic investments very seriously.

Our Investment Committee implements and supervises our Investment Policy Statement with assistance from Graystone Consulting, a Morgan Stanley subsidiary specializing in foundations and endowments. Pooled investment assets of more than $70MM (ours, other charitable agencies, trusts, and Donor Advised Funds) provide the opportunity to participate in high-quality investments and receive lower fees. Our Investment Policy Statement is available upon request.

How it works

Get Results

Funds are invested within a pool whose broad diversification reduces risk, lowers investment fees and maximizes returns. We offer two pooled portfolio options - a long-term fund pool or an Impact Investing (or ESG) portfolio option for those wanting to be sensitive to environmental, social, and governance issues. Opportunities exist for investing outside the pool for funds over $1,000,000, subject to the Investment Policy Statement.

Scale Up

Our model improves the overall diversification and cost structure of our community’s pooled assets, bringing objective, expert guidance to the complex challenge of managing a large pool of funds with a total rate of return objective.

Supporting the Foundation

To fund the costs of our philanthropic and investment services to the community, we established an Administrative Fee Schedule calculated daily and charged quarterly based on a fund’s average market value according to fund type and amount. When we discuss your fund, we will provide you with the precise investment and administrative fee your fund will incur.

Local, Independent and Transparent

Investment fees and costs charged to funds are competitive, explicit, and transparent. We seek truly independent advice and insist on straightforward fee structures. No member of our Investment Committee may have a business relationship with any firm providing us investment services. The Investment Consultant may not directly, or indirectly, own securities in the pool, receive fees, “trailing fees,” 12-b1 distribution fees, or be involved in “soft money” transactions with any Investment Manager.

Online “banking” allows a fund holder to access their account balance or make grants any time day or night at MyYVCF. The Community Foundation’s independent auditor, Clark Nuber, prepares an annual audit each year.

Investment system callout

Low Investment Fees

Investment costs charged to funds are explicit and transparent to fund holders. Actual investment fees are passed through without markup and charged to all funds in the common investment pool on a pro-rata basis.

We pay our Investment Consultant Fee quarterly on the total value of our pooled assets and prorated among the funds. The rate of the fee falls downward in relation to the increase in size of our portfolio.

Planned Giving

It’s never too early to plan for the future - whether for the transition of your business or your estate

With a little planning and even a modest allocation of assets identified, your assets can strengthen your community and fund areas of our community important to you to ensure they are here for your children, grandchildren, and future generations. The most common types of planned giving are bequests in a will, charitable gift annuities, charitable remainder trusts, life insurance, retirement accounts, charitable lead trusts, and life estate arrangements. Your future gifts can be for an organization you want to invest in or for the general betterment of the Yakima Valley.

We will work closely with you and your financial advisors to set up the type of planned giving program that’s best for you.

If you would like your designated heirs involved in grant making, your will or living trust can be used to create a donor advised fund or supporting organization. Alternatively, we can manage grant making for you in one of our fund types.

The IRA charitable rollover provision allows individuals over age 70½ to donate up to $100,000 to charitable organizations directly from their Individual Retirement Account (IRA), without treating the distribution as taxable income. Gifting can be accomplished with appreciated stock, enabling you to take a charitable deduction for the fair market value of the stock and avoid capital gains tax.

In a charitable remainder trust, you donate the tree but keep the fruit for your lifetime.

A charitable remainder trust provides you and/or other individuals for a payment stream (the income interest) for life or for a term of up to 20 years. When the trust ends, its assets (the charitable remainder interest) are distributed to one or more charitable organizations. A charitable remainder trust is irrevocable and must meet certain IRS requirements. You may serve as trustee, appoint an independent trustee, or ask us to act as trustee. You may save income taxes and/or estate taxes when establishing this type of trust.

In a charitable lead trust, you donate the fruit for a specific time period but leave the tree to your heirs.

A charitable lead trust enables you to make significant charitable gifts while living, with an eventual transfer of substantial assets to individual beneficiaries. We receive annual payments from the trust for a certain number of years or a period measured by the lives of one or more family members. The amount paid by the trust may be distributed to charities specified by you or added to a donor advised fund or any other type of fund we administer. When the trust terminates, its remaining assets are distributed to your children or other heirs you designate; applicable gift and estate taxes are reduced or even eliminated. In some cases, a charitable lead trust can also be structured to provide income tax benefits.

Life insurance can be a flexible and important component of charitable giving. You can donate an older policy that you no longer need or take out a new policy to fund a major charitable project. Life insurance offers a unique way to leverage relatively modest annual payments into a sizable charitable gift.

Issuance of charitable gift annuities (CGAs) is regulated in Washington State, and those regulations require the issuing organization to make annual filings and fund reserves necessary to insure payment to the annuitant. We are licensed to issue charitable gift annuities and do so in partnership with PGCalc. A powerful tax- and economically-effective planned giving tool, a properly structured CGA allows you to achieve two objectives: make a significant gift to the charity and, in return, obtain a fixed stream of income for the specified annuity period.

In a typical CGA arrangement, you transfer cash and/or other property (publicly-traded securities or real estate) to a qualified organization in exchange for the organization’s legal commitment to pay an agreed-upon amount annually (or more frequently) for your lifetime.

The gift is determined by excess of the value of the cash and/or property transferred to the organization over the value of the annuity the organization has promised to pay you. This excess is also the measure of your charitable income tax deduction. The deduction arises because the organization receives cash and/or property in return for its obligation (the annuity payments) that is greater than you would have paid for the same annuity from a commercial carrier. In other words, your “over-payment” generates the charitable deduction.

Still have questions? We’d love to help.