We often hear from our  fundholders that one of the reasons they love working with the Community Foundation is because the foundation is truly the community’s foundation. Whether a family has established a multi-million dollar field-of-interest fund or a donor advised fund to organize a few thousands of dollars of annual charitable gifts, the family knows that they have full access to the Community Foundation’s charitable giving expertise and deep knowledge of the needs in our region.

This is part of the reason we find it so heartwarming to see a focus on altruism appear in the mainstream media. When people from all walks of life can share in the joy of philanthropy, everyone wins. 

Here are a handful of stories we’ve particularly enjoyed that are worth checking out if you happened to miss them.

–Yvon Chouinard, Patagonia’s founder, and his family have just given their ownership of the company to charity by establishing a group of trusts and nonprofits.

–Here in Arkansas, our very own Dr. Omar Atiq made news when he forgave thousands of dollars of medical debt.

–And business leaders aren’t the only people who are increasingly publicizing their charitable giving commitments. More celebrities are sharing their stories of charitable passion, too.

We look forward to hearing your thoughts on these and other stories as philanthropy pops up in your news feed. The community foundation is here to answer your questions and provide the tools you need to activate your charitable intentions in a concrete, meaningful, and tax-savvy way. 

Bear markets aren’t much fun for anyone. But that doesn’t mean your charitable giving commitments have to be put on hold. If you are like many donors, you are still looking for ways to support the organizations you care about that rely on your support to achieve their missions.

Remember, not every stock is down. It’s still incredibly tax-efficient to donate highly-appreciated stock to your fund at the Community Foundation. When you give appreciated stock held for more than one year (a long-term capital asset) to your donor-advised or other type of fund, instead of selling it outright, the capital gains tax is avoided. Plus, marketable securities are typically deductible at their fair market value, further helping your overall income tax situation.

Don’t forget about the Qualified Charitable Distribution (QCD), either. If you’ve reached the age of 70 ½, the QCD is an elegant and effective planning tool. You are still required to take Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) from your IRA even in a down market, but the QCD can help offset this tax hit by allowing you to direct up to $100,000 to a qualified public charity, including a field-of-interest fund or unrestricted fund at the Community Foundation. 

This is also a good time to make sure your estate plan is in good shape, including bequests you may wish to leave to a fund at the Community Foundation so that the causes you care about can continue to be supported for generations to come. A bequest by way of a qualified retirement plan beneficiary designation is an especially effective tool to support your charitable intentions after you are gone. That’s because funds flowing directly to a fund at the Community Foundation from a retirement plan after your death will not be subject to either income tax or estate tax. 

Please reach out to our Development team at Arkansas Community Foundation.  We are here to help! 

The Fayetteville Area Affiliate of Arkansas Community Foundation recently held an event to recognize the organization’s history and growth. The organization is celebrating the awarding of $6.9 million in the last fiscal year to nonprofit organizations and also kicking off a campaign to endow its operating endowment.

“Our Board of Directors is pleased to share the growth of our local affiliate that encourages smart giving and promotes philanthropy throughout Washington County,” said board chairperson, Allison Dolan. “In less than 20 years, our affiliate has gone from awarding two grants totaling $50,000 to almost $7 million in our past fiscal year, and we wanted to share that milestone with our founders and supporters.”

“The growth of our affiliate is just another indicator showing that Washington County residents are community-minded individuals who want to make a difference through philanthropy,” said campaign chairperson, Danna Grear. “By establishing an operating endowment for the Fayetteville Area Affiliate, we will be able to continue the tradition of servicing donors to make grants into perpetuity.”

A quasi-endowed fund was designed for people and organizations that want to enjoy the excitement of giving larger grants now along with the benefit of investing for future growth. These funds are invested in the markets to keep them growing, but there’s no limit on the amount that can be granted from your fund to the organizations you choose. A quasi-endowment requires a $100,000 minimum to start and the balance must remain above $50,000 for the first three years.

Download this one-pager to learn more about about how a quasi-endowment works. 

A recent example of a quasi-endowment in action is held by Habitat for Humanity of Central Arkansas. Like many other nonprofits, Habitat relies heavily on annual giving and donations of all sizes year-round from their donors, but the use of a quasi-endowment allows them to access funds for emergency use and for special initiatives to boost their impact. The pandemic proved a prime example of this. It showed Habitat (and many nonprofits) the importance of growing and maintaining a strong reserve.

“Just like our homeowners must save for the closing costs of their new home, we must save for when a once-in-a lifetime opportunity presents itself to us as well,” said Kelly Fleming, executive director of Habitat for Humanity of Central Arkansas.

Because of a quasi-endowment, Habitat is able to have an impact now, and preserve funds for future use.

In addition to quasi-endowments, the Community Foundation helps donors manage three types of funds depending on the amount they want to donate, desired impact and time horizon. Learn more about the multiple ways to give here.

It doesn’t take long to start enjoying yourself when talking to Nicole and Darrin Williams. Darrin, a Little Rock native and Central High alumnus who serves as CEO for Southern Bancorp, and his wife, Nicole, are fundholders with Arkansas Community Foundation. They opened the Nicole and Darrin Williams Family Charitable Endowment in June 2020 to help ensure their legacy of giving and leadership.

The Williams are attorneys who met at Vanderbilt Law School. Currently living in Little Rock, they raised their children, DJ and Payton, in central Arkansas. DJ and Payton attended Central High and are now enrolled at Wake Forest University in Winston Salem, NC and Spelman College in Atlanta, GA respectively.  Darrin is a founding board member of the Little Rock Central High Tiger Foundation, and the whole family boasts Tiger pride: Nicole was PTSA president while her kids were enrolled there, and Darrin was student-body president in 1986.

Public service and the idea of “giving back” is a deeply rooted tradition for the couple. Darrin has a distinguished resume of public service and volunteerism. He served on the Little Rock Planning Commission, in the Arkansas General Assembly and currently serves on the boards of Arkansas Children’s Hospital and Hendrix College. Adopted by a minister and schoolteacher, his most formative years taught him that “giving back is just what you do.” Growing up “there was never a day that we ate alone as a family. My parents always welcomed people in need for meals and any other help they could provide. They modeled that for me,” he said.

Nicole has similar roots. Her father, a former IBM executive and entrepreneur, has served on the boards of more than 30 community organizations, and her mother has been a full-time volunteer for many service and civic organizations and her church’s Christian education department.

“It was important to Darrin and me that we raise our children to give back. When they were eight years old, we started a tradition to help foster that spirit of giving. Instead of birthday parties where everyone brought a gift for our kids, we would buy them one big thing, and then ask their party guests to donate to a local charity of our children’s choice. DJ first chose Heifer International and Payton selected the Humane Society when she turned eight. Each year they had fun choosing different local charities to support,” said Nicole. “We always had three jars for the kids: church jar, savings jar and spend jar. 10% to the church, 20% in savings and the rest you could spend. Now that the kids are in college, they are mostly continuing this principle, and now they truly see the value in financial management and planning their charity.”

Nicole is a board member with the Tiger Foundation, a sustaining member of the Junior League and a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, an organization dedicated to sisterhood and service. Nicole is also actively involved with the local chapter of The Links, Inc. Links Inc. is a great way to give back to the community. The organization is approximately 75 years old. Founded and led by Black women, we award scholarships, promote cultural activities and events and expose children to art, STEM topics, healthcare information and more,” Nicole said.

“More than anything, though, our faith guides us,” said Darrin. “When Nicole and I first started dating while at Vanderbilt, we would attend church together on Sundays. Those were our first dates! Thankfully, our faith has shaped our marriage, guided our parenting and can hopefully be felt in any community leadership where we are involved. We attribute any accomplishments in life to our faith.”

When asked why they started their fund at Arkansas Community Foundation, Darrin and Nicole said at the same time, “We wish we’d done this sooner!” They are working on a legacy of faith and having fun, while giving back to the causes they care about.

“We are so grateful for the work of the Foundation. If I could offer any advice to someone exploring charitable giving or starting to build a legacy, I’d say ‘don’t wait.’ It is liberating and incredibly fulfilling to have opened a fund. The Foundation makes it easy and gratifying.”

During a routine check-in meeting, your client casually mentions that their employer, a local company, was just acquired. The client and dozens of fellow employee shareholders are now flush with cash. “I’d like to use some of the money to give to charity,” the client tells you. “Let’s talk about a family fund at the Community Foundation.”

You try not to flinch as you mentally calculate the capital gains taxes your client could have avoided if the client had given some of those shares to a fund at the Community Foundation years ago when the company was clearly growing fast, making it a natural target for acquisition or IPO, but well before an exit was in the works.  

All is not lost. You can still help the client establish a donor-advised, field-of-interest, unrestricted, or other type of fund at the Community Foundation to fulfill the client’s charitable intentions. The client’s gifts to the fund qualify for a charitable tax deduction in the current tax year, helping to offset the income from the sale of the shares.  

Still, this situation is all too common and a good reason to regularly remind clients about their options for making gifts to charity and the tax benefits of each.

Giving cash to a public charity, which is what your client in this situation will be doing (!), is always a viable option. The general rule is that your client can deduct cash gifts to up to 60% of their adjusted gross income (AGI) in any given year. While this may not completely offset large gains from the sale of the stock, it will help to reduce the client’s taxable income.

Giving appreciated stock, which is what you wish your client had done, is a very tax-effective method of supporting public charities. Clients who donate stock outright avoid all capital gains tax that would be levied on a sale of the stock if it were sold prior to making the donation. Even with the 30 percent of AGI limitation imposed on gifts of highly-appreciated, long-term capital gains property to a public charity, your client likely will still come out ahead because the client’s AGI is presumably a lot lower than it will be in the year of a future stock sale. 

For easy future reference: download and save our handy guide which details the AGI limitations on cash and stock gifts.

Despite cautionary tales most Americans do not have a will. Even those clients who do have estate plans in place may not truly understand the difference between a will and a trust (and the reason they still need a will even if they have a revocable living trust). A client also may not understand that a charitable bequest can be part of an estate plan whether the client’s main estate planning vehicle is a will or whether it is a trust. 

Of the $485 billion given to charity by Americans in 2021, according to Giving USA, 9.5% of that giving came from bequests–that’s $46 billion. Giving USA’s data visualization tool illustrates the ebbs and flows of bequest giving, which has long been a significant component of philanthropy. 

Research reveals fascinating psychological factors behind a person’s decision to leave a bequest, which helps to understand the motivation for leaving a gift to a charitable organization in a will or trust. Not surprisingly, altruism has long been one of those factors. Bequests to charity are not a new idea. Examples of high profile estate gifts date back centuries. Some of your clients may be familiar with the bequests of Benjamin Franklin, who established testamentary charitable trusts dedicated to supporting Boston and Philadelphia tradesmen, and George Washington, who left bequests in his will to colleges and trade schools.

Our team welcomes the opportunity to work with your clients to establish bequests to your clients’ funds at the Community Foundation through a will or trust or through a beneficiary designation on a qualified retirement plan or life insurance policy, including providing you with proper bequest language to ensure alignment with your client’s intentions. As we approach the fourth quarter, now is also a good time to remind your clients that bequests of qualified retirement plans can be extremely tax-efficient. Funds flowing directly to a client’s fund at the Community Foundation from a retirement plan after the client’s death will not be subject to income tax or estate tax. 

We look forward to working with you to establish your clients’ philanthropic legacies. 

The Community Foundation has a history of strong board leadership. Don Greenland, vice chairman of The Nabholz Group and leadership coach for Nabholz Construction Services, is no exception. Don completed his term as Community Foundation State Board chair in 2022, and we are so grateful for his leadership and service to the Foundation. He and Angela, his wife of almost 39 years, established the Greenland Family Charitable Endowment with Community Foundation of Faulkner County. They’ve lived in Conway since 1985.

We are excited to get to know Don better with our new Q&A series to shine a light on important contributors to the Community Foundation:

What is your favorite nonprofit in Arkansas and what drew you to their mission?  How did you hear about them?

I have a heart for serving the marginalized in my community (hungry, homeless, etc.). Through my personal volunteerism, and my seat on the local affiliate board of the Community Foundation, I learned about some wonderful local organizations that are addressing these issues. Bethlehem House, The Conway Ministry Center, and City of Hope Outreach (CoHo), are some of my favorites. They share a common mission to work with at-risk individuals and families to keep them from becoming hungry and homeless.

How did you get involved in charitable giving?  How did you get involved with the Arkansas Community Foundation?

I give credit to my parents. They were wonderful examples of charitable giving and volunteerism. Growing up, they would involve me and my sister in numerous projects and events supporting causes they cared about. So I guess it is hardwired in my DNA.

My involvement with Arkansas Community Foundation is a longer story. My wife also had generous parents. So as young parents, we were seeking a way to teach and involve our children in charitable giving. One of my business associates had recently created a family foundation for similar purposes. I was about to hire a lawyer and CPA to form our foundation when Charles Nabholz (his office was next to mine) told me about this thing called a “community foundation”. After a quick meeting with the local Executive Director, and a few pages of paperwork, the Greenland Family Charitable Endowment was born! I immediately became a fan of the Community Foundation. Months later, I was asked to serve on the local affiliate board. My answer was an easy YES. I remain a member of this wonderful board to this day.

What did serving as the Chair of the Foundation Board teach you?

I have learned so much serving on the Foundation Board. I have benefited greatly from the shared personal experiences of my fellow board members, all amazing people. From the wonderful leadership and staff of the Foundation, I learned how to have more positive impact on issues I care about (a.k.a. smart giving). I learned about “SMIRF”: using 5 forms of philanthropic capital to increase impact:  Social, Moral, Intellectual, Reputational, and Financial. I could go on and on…

What inspires you to give?

First and foremost, as a man of faith I am called to love and serve my neighbors. As one of the most blessed people on the planet, I know my circumstances are the result of God’s grace, others helping me, and being a part of a thriving community. Out of gratitude, I am a very cheerful giver!

What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?

I really enjoy working with my hands and tools on service projects. I get to work with some local handymen doing home repairs, handicap ramps, and helping local nonprofits with their facility needs. I take two or three mission trips each year doing the same thing. I still play the drums with the local classic rock band “Yesteryear” and play in the contemporary Christian group with my wife and daughter for weekly church services. I’ll also do a little hunting and fishing with friends, and my wife and I are enjoying more travel together.

What has been your most valuable lesson in life?

Two lessons that resonate with me that I like to share with others. First, everyone matters. Second, there is no such thing as “time management”. You make time for what is important to you.

What question do you wish you got asked more?

“Why are you so happy and positive all the time?”

If you had a chance to have a meal or conversation with someone, living or dead, who would it be? Why?

I love to eat, so I would have a meal with just about anyone😊. As a Catholic man of faith, my dream conversation would be with Jesus, Pope Francis, and Mother Theresa. They would certainly inspire me to strive much harder for a life of significance and service to others!

Don was born in Portland, Oregon and move to McGehee, Arkansas when he was eight years old. At the age of 12, his family moved to Stuttgart where he graduated from Stuttgart High School.

Don and Angela have two children. His daughter, Megan Greenland Williams, is the Vice President of Associated Builders and Contractors of Arkansas and recently married to Drew Williams (No grandkids yet!). Their son, Carter Greenland is a CDL Driver & Equipment Operator for Nabholz Civil Group in Northwest Arkansas and part-time Real Estate Agent for Coldwell Banker.

Survey of hospitals shows the impact of COVID-19 on the financial health of hospitals in 2021

LITTLE ROCK, AR (August 9, 2022) – A recent financial survey conducted by the Arkansas Hospital Association shows that the COVID-19 pandemic continues to create profound financial volatility for the state’s hospitals. On average, hospitals responding to the survey saw a total margin decrease of 3.5 percentage points between the first quarter of 2019, prior to the pandemic, and the first quarter of 2022, leaving a full 52 percent of respondents now in the red. This sustained financial squeeze could result in diminished access to care for Arkansans.

“The survey certainly paints a bleak picture for Arkansas hospitals’ finances,” Arkansas Hospital Association President & CEO Bo Ryall commented. “The fact that about half of the facilities who responded are now operating on negative margins should be a major cause for concern for all of us. In many of our communities, the hospital is the largest employer, and 40 Arkansas counties are served by a single hospital. Without a hospital, the most vulnerable residents – often the elderly and those living in poverty – may find their access to health care severely limited.

“The people who work in our hospitals are remarkably strong,” Ryall continued, “and our hospital leaders are equally motivated by their shared mission to provide care to the people of our state. It is because of their vision and commitment that I’m confident we can navigate our way through this difficult time. But hospitals won’t be able to do it alone; it will require all of us to recognize the crucial role they play as both the heart of the health care system and a major driver of the state’s economy. Unless hospitals receive additional assistance from state and federal government, we will see more reductions in services and possibly even closures.”

It is difficult to overstate the environment of uncertainty within which hospitals have had to make clinical, operational, and financial decisions throughout the pandemic. Unlike other industries, hospitals cannot just raise their prices; they are primarily paid by Medicare, Medicaid, and negotiated contracts with commercial insurers. Before COVID-19, Arkansas hospitals faced downward revenue pressure from payers, and many were operating on slim – and, in some cases, negative – margins. Since the beginning of the pandemic, hospital expenses have increased more rapidly than revenues. As demand spiked and many health care workers were pulled away by lucrative jobs elsewhere, total hospital staffing vacancies skyrocketed, leaving facilities throughout the state reliant on expensive contract labor to maintain a safe and effective environment for patients and employees. Even as COVID-19 cases ebbed during the spring, the survey shows that inflationary pressures increased, further exacerbating the financial situation in hospitals.

Hospitals are cornerstones of Arkansas communities, and the risks they now face highlight the need for policy, legislative, and regulatory approaches to support and strengthen the health care system.

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The Arkansas Hospital Association has 106 member hospitals that serve Arkansans living in cities, towns, and communities located throughout the state. For more than 90 years, the association’s leadership has focused on advocacy that promotes initiatives to improve health care access, quality, value, service, and safety. In partnership with our members and stakeholders, the association also provides resources, builds alliances, and develops services that support Arkansas hospitals, as they strive to deliver superior health care to all Arkansans.

Arkansas Community Foundation made a grant from the Lindsey East Endowment as part of the Access to Local Foods program. This grant supports the Center for Arkansas Farms and Food and Arkansas Food Innovation Center (both programs of the University of Arkansas) by providing funds to teach undergraduate interns how to create value-added foods from surplus produce grown at the Center for Arkansas Farm and Food.

The Arkansas Food Innovation Center is a commercial food production facility that helps farmers and food entrepreneurs bring their products to market. One of the pain-points these two programs have been working to address is how to help farmers find alternative uses for their unsold or second-grade (edible but ugly) produce so they don’t lose revenue. Creating “value-added” foods (for example, turning tomatoes in to sauce or berries into jam) is one such solution.

The Center for Arkansas Farm and Food is a teaching farm that offers experiential learning programs for beginning farmers and experienced farmers who want to expand their knowledge or markets. The goal is to increase the number of thriving farms and farmers in Arkansas, particularly those growing vegetables and specialty produce.

The grant enabled the Food Innovation Center to hire student interns for an experiential learning program that would help them understand the process of creating and marketing value-added foods from start to finish.

The Food Innovation Center prepared a video that shows all the complexity that goes into creating tomato sauce from surplus produce:

To learn more about this program, visit Center for Arkansas Farm and Food and Arkansas Food Innovation Center.