OUR KEY VALUES

1. Personalized service: Community Foundations help individuals, families, businesses, and nonprofit agencies achieve their charitable and financial goals by providing tools and resources that make giving easy, flexible, and effective.

• Donors can create a charitable fund and recommend grants that support the issues and groups they care about — such as the arts, education, the environment, and healthcare — even if these groups are located outside of their local community. Or, donors can rely on the foundation to make grants that reflect their particular interests.
  
• We are an attractive alternative to starting a private foundation, since we handle all record keeping, reporting to the IRS, accounting, and investment management.
  
• Donors who establish a fund at a Community Foundation benefit from the highest available tax deductions for charitable contributions.
  
• Donors have opportunities to be involved in the grantmaking process, including recommending grant recipients.
  
• We can accept a variety of assets and facilitate complicated giving strategies.
  
• We pool the assets of individual funds, giving us economies of scale to hire top investment managers.
  
• Donors can choose to be anonymous in their giving.

2. Local expertise: Community Foundations have an in-depth understanding of the community’s challenges and the groups and individuals addressing them.

• We closely monitor community issues, opportunities, and resources.
  
• Our knowledge of the community enables our donors to make a difference by funding high-impact initiatives addressing a broad range of local needs.
  
• Our expertise helps donors learn more about local issues in order to make their giving as effective as possible.

3. Community leadership: Community foundations play a key role in addressing community needs—now and in the future.

• We serve as community catalysts, convening diverse voices and groups to work on solutions to local issues.
  
• We build endowments to ensure that grants are always available to support the community.
  
• We foster greater giving and volunteering.
  
• We are governed by leaders with strong ties to our community.
  

There is so much more we’d like you to know. For more information and ideas on ways to integrate your financial planning with charitable giving, ask your financial advisor or contact the Community Foundation of the Northern Shenandoah Valley at (540) 869-6776 or email us at info@CFNSV.org.