By Kim Dishongh

When a woman is pregnant, there is often no information she values more than the kind that comes from her mother, grandmother, sister and aunts. Those female mentors are not always readily available, however, so the Arkansas Birthing Project works to fill in the gaps.

Zenobia Harris, Executive Director of Arkansas Birthing Project

“We work to establish fictive kinship relationships,” said Zenobia Harris, executive director of the Arkansas Birthing Project. “Our founder calls it ‘sister-friending.’ Some people already have good family support, and they just want extra support, and some people don’t have much support at all.” Sister-friends, women who volunteer to serve as mentors to pregnant women, step in and serve as social support to help improve the chances that moms and their babies will be healthy.

“By being a part of this ‘family,’ you have a lot of people who are looking out for you and who are willing to make sure that you’re going to be okay during this process and afterwards,” Harris said.

Arkansas Birthing Project was founded in 1988 by Katherine Hall-Trujillo. Trujillo, born in Moscow, near Pine Bluff, was a public health administrator for the state of California at the time, and she had ample experience working with women who lacked access to good healthcare during their pregnancies. The group made themselves available for informal conversations about pregnancy and motherhood, and they offered support, too, like rides to prenatal visits.

The Birthing Project has been replicated in more than 70 communities across the United States and in seven foreign countries. In 1999, the Birthing Project came to Arkansas.

“She and nine of her friends bound together in what we call a ‘bunch,’ and they agreed to provide social support to a group of young women who were considered to be high risk,” Harris said of Trujillo. “What they found astounded them. The women gave birth to babies that were at term; they were at good birth weights, there were no ICU stays required of the babies when they were born; moms did better after birth with this extra support…”

The program was recreated within that California community and, eventually, beyond.

“The Birthing Project has been replicated in more than 70 communities across the United States and also in seven foreign countries, including Cuba,” said Harris. “In 1999, the Birthing Project came to Arkansas.”

Arkansas Birthing Project aims for little sisters — the pregnant women who participate in the organization’s program — to give birth to full-term babies, with birthweights of 5 pounds or more.

Sister-friends are volunteers from all walks of life, Harris said.

“We work with sororities, women’s church groups, community clubs — anywhere women gather and work in fellowship — to recruit our sister-friends,” Harris said. “They commit to one year. We make sure that our little sisters have a prenatal care provider, that they attend their appointments, and that they make provisions for themselves and their babies during this time to make sure they have a healthy outcome.”

Arkansas Birthing Project also provides assistance, on occasion, with car seats and cribs and other equipment necessary for the first year of a baby’s life. The organization can pass on donated baby clothing and can provide diapers and sometimes baby formula or breast pumps, as well.

“We certainly work on social supports, things that people need to have a healthy situation, like a place to live, food to eat, a safe sleep environment,” Harris said. “We also include encouraging young women to do some planning for their future. We call it dreaming, and many of the young women we work with don’t have dreams for their futures. Many of our young women are focused on subsistence living — surviving.”

The little sisters are asked to consider where they see themselves and their babies in a year — or in five years — and then encouraged to work on planning how to reach those goals.

Arkansas Birthing Project is funded through grants from organizations like Arkansas Community Foundation and from private donations.

“We have had some pretty lean years, and I’ve often done things out of my pocket because I believe in this,” said Harris. “I think it’s another important component, of all the things that are out there to help women. I think there are different things for different people, and the people that we tend to interact with and attract are people that I call ‘off the grid’ people- people that other people perhaps don’t value as much or feel like they can be as successful. We believe they can.”

Getting a jump on a future “to do” list is such a good feeling. The team at the Community Foundation can help you with your clients’ long-term charitable giving plans by putting in place the structures to receive bequests decades from now.

Consider a case where you’re finalizing an estate plan for a client who would like to leave bequests to multiple charitable organizations, but the identity of those specific organizations may be a moving target over the years because of the client’s evolving level of engagement with various charities as a donor, volunteer, or board member. In other words, this client will likely make small changes to the estate plan’s provisions for charitable giving but leave everything else as is. For example, a client’s trust could be drafted to provide that 10% of the remaining estate be divided equally among five charities, which could be listed in the trust document. But what if, a few years from now, the client wants to add another charity to that list? Even a small change like this would require an amendment, which can be time-consuming for both attorney and client. 

Instead, the client’s trust document could name their “deferred” fund at the Community Foundation as the beneficiary of 10% of the remaining estate. Then, the client can work with our team to draft an agreement that lists the charities that will share the 10%. When the client wants to add new charities or switch out charities from the list, the client can reach out to the Community Foundation and execute simple documentation of their updated intent for the fund. This process is fast, simple, and FREE. And it allows clients to ensure that their bequests are in line with ever-changing needs in the community. 

In some cases, the client may not intend to use the fund during their lifetime. That’s perfectly fine; the Community Foundation can establish a “deferred” or “shell fund” to sit dormant and receive assets only after the client passes away. Your client can still name the fund whatever they’d like, and the fund agreement can be modified anytime before the client’s death. 

Please reach out to the Community Foundation to learn how charitable funds and other planning tools can help your clients achieve their philanthropic goals both during their lifetimes and beyond. 

When your client is getting ready to make a contribution to charity or a fund at the Community Foundation, remind them not to automatically reach for the checkbook! Here are other (and typically more tax-savvy) options to consider. 

Marketable securities

Gifts of appreciated stock is always a tax-savvy ways to give because capital gains tax can be avoided. Gifts of publicly-traded stock, for example, are easy to transfer to a fund. The Community Foundation team can provide you and your clients with transfer instructions to make the process simple. 

As is the case with a cash gift, the Community Foundation will provide a receipt for tax purposes, and the gift of stock will be valued at the shares’ fair market value on the date of transfer. When the Community Foundation sells the shares, the proceeds flow into the client’s fund without any reduction for capital gains taxes. This is because the Community Foundation is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization and therefore does not pay income tax. That would not have been the case, however, if the client had sold the stock first and then transferred the proceeds to a fund at the Community Foundation; the client would owe capital gains tax on the sale. Especially in cases where the client has held the stock a long time and it’s gone up significantly in value, the capital gains hit can be big.

QCDs from IRAs

As always, keep in mind that the Qualified Charitable Distribution (“QCD”) is a very smart way to support charitable causes. If your client is over the age of 70 ½, the client can direct up to $105,000 (in 2024) from an IRA to certain charities, including a field-of-interest, designated, unrestricted, or scholarship fund at the Community Foundation. If your client is subject to the rules for Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs), QCDs count toward those RMDs. That means your client avoids income tax on the funds distributed to charity. Our team can work with you and your client to go over the rules for QCDs and evaluate whether the QCD is a good fit. 

Real estate 

Your client’s fund at the Community Foundation can receive a tax-deductible gift of real estate, such as farmland or commercial property, in a variety of ways. An outright gift is always an option; lifetime gifts of real estate held by the client for more than one year are deductible for income tax purposes at 100% of the fair market value of the property on the date of the gift, which also avoids capital gains tax and reduces the value of your client’s taxable estate. Other ways to give real estate include a bargain sale or a transfer to a charitable remainder trust which produces lifetime income for the client and the client’s family.

Life insurance

Don’t overlook life insurance as an effective charitable giving tool, whether by naming a client’s fund at the Community Foundation as the beneficiary or, in the case of whole life policies, naming the fund as beneficiary and transferring the policy itself. If your client transfers a policy, the client may be able to make annual, tax-deductible contributions to the Community Foundation to cover the premiums. 

Other “alternative” assets

The Community Foundation is happy to work with you and your clients to explore options for giving other non-cash assets to funds at the Community Foundation, including:

  • Oil and gas interests
  • Negotiable instruments

We look forward to working with you to explore all the options! 

In the fertile soil of the Arkansas Delta, you’ll find a special group of leaders, volunteers and donors committed to making Craighead County the best it can be.

Craighead County Community Foundation was founded in 2001. Since its inception, the group has made $3.1 million in grants and scholarships. Their Giving Tree program continues to grow and accepts applications once a year. Recently, the affiliate received a large estate gift that will allow them to make nearly double the amount of Giving Tree grants in future years.

“There is a lot of need here. In response to that need, we are listening to the nonprofits closely and working hard to meet them where they are and be more flexible in how we provide funding,” said Jonathan Jacobs, current chair of the local board.

“I like our approach to grantmaking,” he said. “Our goal is to maximize our grant dollars to make the most impact possible. Knowing the nonprofits better enables us to do this.”

Jacobs and his wife started a fund at the Community Foundation in 2021 and give to a variety of causes. “I love having my whole family involved in philanthropy. We named our endowment together and I want my children to see the needs here locally and understand how people experience life different from us,” he said. “My dad taught me about service to others. One of my earliest memories was watching him fry fish [at an annual fundraiser] at Camp Aldersgate in Little Rock. I’m grateful he taught me how to give back. One way I do that is by serving on this board.”

“Old ideas of philanthropy are gone,” said Gina Gomez, former board member. “The needs are too great so we must adapt and change. Literacy rates are dismal. Poverty is increasing. We must rise up to address these needs and more. By recruiting young professionals to our board, encouraging youth to be involved and pursuing as much information as we can, this community foundation is bringing new life to this county and its residents.”

Melissa Ayers is the executive director for the affiliate. “Next year, we plan to grant more than $108,000 from our Giving Tree and Stop Hunger endowments and want to keep doing more. We prioritize different areas of focus for our grantmaking based on data and community needs,” said Ayers. “But in addition to grantmaking, we are trying to teach this community about what philanthropy really is. It’s more than monetary donations and more than something only wealthy people can do — it is anything you can do that will help others.”


Melissa Ayers

“This affiliate has always had strong leadership, and we’ve always been a little ahead of the curve,” said Gomez. “But we want to keep building on that by being a better listener for underserved communities, attracting new donors and reaching out to new nonprofits. We want people in this area to know that this Foundation is for everyone.”

Craighead County Community Foundation is one of 29 local offices. To learn more about our affiliate system, visit arcf.org/affilates.

If you’re a business owner, odds are you already give back to your community. Like many charitably-minded people, your business likely sponsors events, makes in-kind donations, and donates cash to favorite organizations.

Many Arkansas business owners work with the Community Foundation to give back to the community where they built their businesses and developed lasting relationships with employees and customers.

The Community Foundation offers a variety of tools to help you build and grow your corporate philanthropy program, including:

  • Corporate Advised Fund. Establishing a corporate donor advised fund helps you organize your company’s giving in a convenient, easy to use tool at the Community Foundation.
  • Matching gifts. The Community Foundation can help guide your team in creating and administering a program that matches employees’ volunteer time and dollars.
  • Grant making administration and strategy. You and your colleagues likely receive dozens of requests each month from nonprofit organizations requesting sponsorships and monetary donations. Our team at the Community Foundation can help you create and implement a strategy for evaluating and responding to those requests to align with your company’s goals for supporting and prioritizing causes.

The Community Foundation is glad to help you deepen your company’s impact and connection to your community, customers, and employees by creating a philanthropy plan that supports causes that align with the wide range of your objectives. Reach out to one of our philanthropic advisors today!

As you contemplate your legacy and adjust your estate plan over the years, it’s natural to focus on your children and family as the primary beneficiaries in your will and trust. However, if you’re like many other charitably-minded individuals, you might find that your perspectives about what exactly it means to leave a legacy are expanding beyond your next of kin.

If your community is on your mind and in your heart, and you’re interested in ways you improve the quality of life for your neighbors, our team at the Community Foundation would be honored to discuss the ways we can help. Here are three options for funds you can establish with the Community Foundation to benefit your community in your overall philanthropy and estate plan:

Unrestricted fund

Major advantages of the Community Foundation include its perpetual structure, community-based governance, and ability to respond to emerging needs. An unrestricted fund allows you and your family to provide support that evolves over time as priorities in the region shift. The Community Foundation’s mission is to thoroughly understand the community and improve lives within it. TheFoundation’s board and professional staff conduct ongoing, extensive research about the needs of the community and the nonprofit programs that are addressing those needs. Establishing an unrestricted fund means you are investing in the Community Foundation to support programs that are addressing the community’s most pressing needs now, and in the future.  

Field-of-interest fund

A field of interest fund is an ideal way to target your giving to specific areas of community need (such as education, health, environment, or the arts). Your field of interest fund at the Community Foundation establishes parameters for grant making according to your wishes. The Foundation’s staff follows these parameters and uses its research and expertise to make grants that align with your intentions. Your fund can continue beyond your lifetime, for  multiple generations, providing ongoing support to your area(s) of interest.

Designated fund

A designated fund at the Community Foundation can help you secure your favorite organization’s financial future so that its mission continues, uninterrupted, even in the face of challenges. You can set up multiple designated funds if you’d like to support more than one organization. You can even set up a designated fund to support a governmental unit, such as the parks department. A designated fund allows you to decide on the timing of the distributions from the fund, such as during the organization’s capital campaign or to support a specific program or initiative. You can serve as an advisor to the fund to recommend the timing and amount of grants to the supported organization, or you can appoint the board of directors of the Community Foundation to carry out this function according to your wishes.

And here’s a bonus!If you plan to give to an unrestricted fund, designated fund, or field-of-interest fund at the community foundation during your lifetime, and you’re over the age of 70 1/2, you can direct up to $105,000 each year from your IRA to the fund. This is called a “Qualified Charitable Distribution,” or “QCD.” Not only do QCD transfers count toward satisfying your Required Minimum Distributions if you’ve reached that age threshold, but you also avoid the income tax on those funds. Furthermore, the assets distributed through a QCD are no longer part of your estate upon your death, so you can avoid estate taxes, too. 

Every year, our team at Arkansas Community Foundation works with people like you to establish endowment funds to support the needs of their communities in perpetuity. 

Here are answers to four frequently-asked questions about setting up an endowment fund:

Why does the Community Foundation offer endowment funds to individuals and families?

The Community Foundation serves as the hub of philanthropy for many families in Arkansas.  We connect donors like you to community needs you care about. This includes offering the opportunity to make a charitable investment that supports a range of community needs now and in the future. That’s the purpose of an endowment: to provide a steady stream of support,  far into the future, to meet community needs as they arise.

How does an “endowment” work?

“Endowment” is the word often used to refer to a designated pool of assets that are invested by the Community Foundation. A portion of the earnings are distributed each year to charitable causes while the rest of the assets remain invested to grow in perpetuity. This growth, in turn, ensures the endowment can provide even more support each year to the causes for which it was established. The Community Foundation team is experienced at managing the accounting, investment, and distribution aspects of endowment funds. 

How can I stay involved with my endowment fund after it’s established?

First and foremost, you choose the name of the endowment, and what you want your endowment to support.  Then our team will keep you informed about the financial growth, as well as the positive change in the community that is occurring thanks to the distributions from the endowment you’ve established. We can continue to keep your children and grandchildren informed, too, beyond your lifetime. In this way, your legacy continues through the generations.   

Who decides where the endowment distributions go each year?

Depending on how your endowment is structured, you may recommend where the grant distributions go each year (Donor Advised) or entrust our team to do that on your behalf (Field of Interest, Scholarship, Etc.). Either way, our independent board of directors reviews and approves these distributions to ensure that they fulfill your charitable goals for establishing the endowment in the first place.

What does it take to establish an endowment fund?

Setting up an endowment fund is as easy as setting up any other type of fund at the Community Foundation. Our team will prepare simple paperwork capturing the name of the endowment fund and any areas of interest you’d like to support. Then, you can transfer cash—or, even better for tax purposes, you can transfer appreciated assets such as stock or real estate. You’ll be eligible for a charitable tax deduction in the year you make the transfer to establish the fund. You can make future transfers to your endowment fund each year, too, to achieve your tax and estate planning goals. Our team is also happy to work with you and your advisors to structure a bequest to your endowment fund following your death. We highly recommend considering a bequest in the form of a beneficiary designation on an IRA because of the multiple tax benefits. Related, if you are over 70 ½, making a “Qualified Charitable Distribution” from your IRA directly to your endowment fund is a very effective charitable planning tool to avoid income tax and also satisfy your Required Minimum Distribution if you’ve reached that age as well.  

We look forward to working with you to support your community and your favorite charitable causes for generations to come! 

Arkansas Community Foundation lost one of its most cherished donors in 2023, Dr. Ruth Marie Allen. However, her legacy lives on. Every step along her illustrious career she left a path of charity and endowments.

While a pioneer in biochemistry and instructional design and technology, Dr. Allen also served in the Peace Corps in Malaysia. She was an esteemed professor and practitioner at various universities across the United States and China. While she worked tirelessly to build her career, she also found a way to be of service to every community where she lived.

One of the many ways she made an impact was through establishing scholarships. At Michigan State, just one of her alma maters, she endowed several student and faculty scholarships. At the University of Arkansas’ Clinton School of Public Service, she contributed to their curriculum, and established the Dr. Ruth Allen Scholarship for students.

One of her greatest passions was orchestral music. A loyal volunteer for the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, she endowed the Dr. Ruth Marie Allen Concert Series which still provides concerts at UAMS.

Beyond the brilliance of her career, Dr. Allen was also wise with her charitable giving. She used her Roth and traditional IRAs to create the Ruth Marie Allen Endowment for Wildwood Park. Because of her foresight and smart giving strategies and planning while alive, generous gifts were immediately made to Wildwood Park for the Arts when she passed.

Dr. Allen holds a special place in the Community Foundation’s heart. She was a regular volunteer for the Foundation’s annual Arkansas Gives campaign and gave generously to various funds. Our staff worked closely with her to make sure her charitable intentions would continue to be fulfilled long after she passed. It was our honor to work with her and we are so grateful that Dr. Allen trusted us. Through the power of endowment, her legacy—like our appreciation—will live on forever.

By Jane Browning, Executive Director of Hot Springs Village Community Foundation

Does March Madness really refer to basketball, or is it all about tax season? Changing rules, changing circumstances, emerging priorities all vie for our attention at this time of year. We clearly need professional help in sorting through our financial matters to come out on top of this year’s filing season.

Fortunately, Hot Springs Village is blessed with a plethora of great professional talent in the way of accounting firms, estate lawyers, financial advisors and planners. We also have Hot Springs Village Community Foundation with its experience in philanthropic giving and planning. We are one of 29 affiliates in the state with direct access to a team of seasoned professionals with deep knowledge of the nonprofit landscape.

Arkansas Community Foundation offers tax-wise ways to give. Consider these opportunities for smart charitable giving:

Charitable Bunching. Combine multiple years of charitable contributions in one calendar year in order to exceed the standard deduction in that year and receive maximum tax benefits for those donations. Donors can use a charitable fund, such as a Donor Advised Fund, to bunch or “stack” donations in a single year. Gifts to charitable funds are tax-deductible and the assets can be invested, so charitable dollars grow tax-free. Donors can use those assets to provide ongoing support for their favorite nonprofits, even in the years they claim the standard deduction.

IRA Qualified Charitable Distributions. Utilize a retirement account to make charitable donations. A Qualified Charitable Distribution (QCD) allows traditional IRA account owners age 70 1/2+ to direct up to $105,000 each year to qualified charities without treating the distribution as taxable income. A QCD is particularly smart for those who take the standard deduction and would miss out on writing off charitable contributions. And an IRA owner of age 73+ can offset the tax consequences of their Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) by using it for a QCD.

Highly Appreciated Assets. Translate earnings into community impact by donating stock or another appreciated asset. Instead of selling, donors receive a tax deduction based on the stock’s full market value and avoid capital gains taxes. The gift can then be used to benefit the causes and organizations they care about most.

For more information about how March can be a little less mad, feel free to contact one of the Foundation’s philanthropic advisors by calling 501-372-1116.

Your clients certainly have no shortage of options for their philanthropic dollars. Many clients use their donor advised funds at the Community Foundation to support favorite charities across the country, including alma maters, organizations in the communities where they’ve lived in the past or have a second home, or charities in communities where their grown children are now living. 

Many clients, though, are deeply committed to the local community where they’re living now, where they’ve raised their children, and where they’ve built a business. That’s why it’s helpful to remind clients that they can reach out to the team at the Community Foundation when they want to make sure their dollars are making the biggest difference possible, right here in our community. Giving local satisfies many clients’ commitment to “take care of our own.” The unfortunate steady flow of crises and even disasters, coupled with decreasing state and federal funding to local nonprofits, means that philanthropy is playing an increasingly important role in our state. The Community Foundation, through its wide variety of fund types available to your clients (including endowment funds to support the community in perpetuity), can help your clients achieve their goals for local support, whether that takes the form of disaster recovery, supporting families in need, funding critical workforce development, or paving the way for historic preservation initiatives.

The Community Foundation team is always happy to provide insight into the challenges our community is facing and which organizations are delivering services to alleviate those needs so that your clients can provide immediate support through their donor advised funds. 

Additionally, supporting their local Giving Tree Endowment or an unrestricted fund may be a good fit for clients who want to improve lives, right here in this community, for generations to come. Supporting these types of funds may be particularly compelling for your clients who are 70 ½ or older. These clients may be eligible to make annual distributions up to $105,000 per spouse from their IRAs directly to an unrestricted fund at the Community Foundation. This transfer is called a “Qualified Charitable Distribution,” or “QCD.” Not only do QCD transfers count toward satisfying Required Minimum Distributions, but your client also avoids the income tax on those funds. Furthermore, those assets are no longer part of the client’s estate upon death, so the client can avoid estate taxes, too.

Please reach out to the team at the Community Foundation for more information on how your clients can support both current and future local needs, and also meet their own financial, tax, and generational legacy goals.