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Raise Up Umatilla County Endowment Campaign
The Raise Up campaign aims to raise at least $12 million by December 31, 2024, to be placed into community endowment funds to help people and places in Umatilla County in perpetuity. If you choose to donate, please select the “Greater Hermiston Forever Fund” so your donation goes directly to our communities.
We are seeking at least $2 million in donations and pledges of bequest donations that total at least $10 million. A bequest pledge is a person telling us that they will leave a Forever Fund donation through their will or trust when they pass away.
These funds will exist forever to make grants to help our communities as our needs change over time.
Make Your Donation Go Further
Every donation made through the Raise Up Umatilla County campaign gets multiplied by two matches — more than doubling the contribution.
Types of Giving
Gifts to the Greater Hermiston Community Foundation can be in the form of cash, securities, real estate, or other assets. Your gifts always qualify for the maximum tax benefit under state and federal law, including (in the case of assets with appreciated value) the advantages associated with donating potential capital gains. You can choose to make your gift from the following methods:
Outright Gifts
- Cash – Please make checks payable to “Greater Hermiston Community Foundation.”
- Credit Cards – You can make your gift with a credit card online with your credit card information below.
- Securities – Please contact us for detailed instructions on giving using securities.
- Real Estate or other assets – Please contact us for detailed instructions on gifting real estate or other real property into a charitable fund.
Planned Gifts:
- Bequest - Ask us how you can designate a gift or a portion of your estate using certain bequest language.
- Charitable Remainder Trust - You can place assets in a trust that pays annual income to you (or another named beneficiary) for life. After your lifetime or a term of years, the remainder of the trust can be transferred to the Greater Hermiston Community Foundation.
- Charitable Lead Trust - You can place assets in a trust that pays a fixed amount to the Greater Hermiston Community Foundation for the number of years you select. Once this period ends, the assets held by the trust are transferred to the beneficiaries you name.
- Retirement Plan/Life Insurance - You can name the Greater Hermiston Community Foundation as the designated beneficiary of a retirement plan or as the designated beneficiary, or partial beneficiary, of a life insurance policy.
- Charitable Planning with your IRA - If you are 70½ or older, and therefore required to withdraw monies from your IRA every year, a provision allows you to redirect your IRA contributions to the Greater Hermiston Community Foundation.
Greater Hermiston Community Foundation Services:
We understand the importance of ensuring that your charitable gifts go to the areas you are most passionate about, and that your gifts are used as you intend. To meet your needs and maximize the impact of your charitable giving, we provide a wide array of services:
- Guidance and advice, if you like, to achieve your desired goal
- Coordination with your professional advisor (attorney, CPA, asset manager, etc.)
- The flexibility to accept a variety of different gift types, including cash, publicly traded securities, closely held stock, and life insurance
- Investment/asset management services
- Planned-gift consultation and services.
- One-on-one sessions to help create a customized charitable giving strategy or simply refine your giving approach for maximum impact.
- Ongoing research and updates on community needs and charitable giving opportunities.
- Opportunities to match your charitable interests with community needs.
- Ability to give anonymously.
- Comprehensive record keeping.
Administrative Services Including:
- IRS reporting (you don’t have to file a separate tax return for your fund).
- Personalized gift acknowledgement letters for tax purposes.
Frequently Asked Questions
If you have any questions, contact greaterhermiston@gmail.com
“Endowment” refers to a designated pool of assets that are invested by Greater Hermiston Community Foundation and tracked separately such that a modest portion (usually based on a percentage) of the assets are distributed each year to support our organization’s mission, and the rest of the assets remain invested to grow in perpetuity.
The assets set aside in our endowment fund produce an income stream that helps support our mission now and in the decades ahead, allowing us to deliver on our mission consistently over time, especially as needs shift and the fundraising environment ebbs and flows. Plus, the growth of the endowment itself can provide increasing levels of support each year.
Our team is happy to keep donors informed about the positive change in the community that is occurring thanks to distributions from the endowment fund. We’re happy to continue to keep a donor’s children and grandchildren informed, too, beyond a donor’s lifetime. In this way, a donor’s legacy continues through the generations.
Our organization’s board of directors reviews endowment income each year as part of a careful budget process. It’s very clear that certain dollars are flowing into the budget from endowment income. Our independent board of directors develops and oversees each grant cycle to meet our organization’s mission for the coming year.
A donor certainly may transfer cash to the endowment fund. Even better for tax purposes, a donor can transfer appreciated stock or real estate. A donor can also work with estate planning and financial advisors to structure a bequest to the endowment fund. Our team helps each donor design a gift to achieve both the donor’s tax goals and charitable giving goals. For instance, many advisors highly recommend a bequest through an IRA beneficiary designation because of the multiple tax benefits. Related, if a donor is over 70 ½, making a “Qualified Charitable Distribution” from an IRA directly to our organization’s endowment fund is a very effective charitable planning tool to reduce income tax and, if applicable, also satisfy Required Minimum Distributions.
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