A Charitable Foundation In Your Name Need Not Be A Dream.

There are a lot of people who would like to establish a charitable foundation in the own names. The act of doing can be compared to set up a monument in your name as a tribute to your loved ones and to leave something behind not only for the people you care about, but also for a favorite charity of your choice.

Nowadays, due to recent legislation establishing a charity foundation in your name need not be only dream. More and more people are coming forward to take the few simple steps involved in turning their dreams into a reality.

At one time, the fees involved in appointing a trustee to handle the affairs of a charity foundation were so high that they put the idea out of reach for most people in the medium wage bracket. Nowadays costs can be saved by establishing a foundation where a group of people can come together and establish a charitable foundation that will contribute to a cause that they are personally attached to. For example, members of a sports club can get together and each donate a sum of money to establish a charity, specifically to support the club. The sum of money that each one donates need not necessarily be the same. However each donator enjoys the tax benefits generated by donation to their charity in relation to what they donated. The sum of money that a member donates cannot be returned and in the event of their passing, their share of the charity passes to the benefactor, in this example, the sports club.

Once the decision has been made to go ahead, then establishing a charitable foundation can be fairly straightforward.

The steps involved are as follows:
  1. The donor or donors agree how much they wish to donate to the charitable foundation.
  2. A separate bank account for the foundation has to be opened
  3. Once the size of donation has been settled, then the donor or donors have to arrange to transfer the capital to the fund's bank account
  4. A trustee has to be appointed to manage the foundation. The trustee can be one of the donors.
  5. The foundation has to decide which charity of charities will benefit from the fund.

Once all these issues have been settled the next step is to incorporate the charity as a non profit making operation. In order to do so the charitable foundation will need to prepare a mission statement, laying out its objective. This is done according to the criteria laid out above.

The incorporation of the charitable foundation has to be done very carefully, as the IRS need to be certain that the charitable foundation has been established purely as a nonprofit organisation. Many smaller foundations, at least in their early stages, function under the umbrella of an already established foundation to help them through this potentially difficult period. Others who have larger resources appoint a lawyer to oversee the incorporation on there behalf. In certain cases, the charitable foundation may be lucky enough to find a lawyer who is particularly sympathetic to charity who will enjoy the money to be donated by the charitable foundation; In this case they may well waive their fees or at least give a considerable reduction.

By following these few simple procedures then you will find that a charitable foundation in your name need not be a dream. You, your family, your friends and your colleagues can share the pleasure of helping others, and guarantee a fixed income and generous tax benefits for the rest of your life.