Ways to give
Charitable Giving Strategies Aligned with Your Vision and Values
Jefferson Community Foundation is a powerful investing mechanism with an expert knowledge of charitable giving laws, best practices, and gift administration.
- Start a Fund
Provide grants to causes and organizations that matter most to you by starting a charitable fund. - Support JCF’s Network of Changemakers
By making a gift to Jefferson Community Foundation you are helping to bring together people, data and resources to address some of our communities’ most pressing challenges and most promising opportunities. - Build a Legacy
Make a planned gift in the form of a bequest, charitable annuity or remainder trust. Without affecting your financial security, you can either specify a dollar amount, a particular asset, or a percentage of your estate. - Donate to a Fund
From the environment to the arts, there are a number of funds that you can support. You can make a gift online to these existing funds.
Start a Fund
A fund is a pool of money invested and professionally managed to achieve set goals. Gains earned through investment are then strategically allocated to specific causes. Some common types of funds include:
All assets managed by JCF are currently held at the Greater Tacoma Community Foundation to ensure that your investments are prudently managed— as part of GTCF’s $160 million pool —for the highest possible return.
Establish a fund with any of the following assets:
- Cash (cash equivalents, including credit card donations)
- Marketable securities (stock)
- Transfer of a Fund from another community foundation
- Transfer of a private foundation
- Closely held, restricted or pre-IPO stock
- Real estate, partial interest in real estate or promissory notes
- Royalties and distribution rights
Is your asset not listed here? Contact Siobhan Canty to learn if we can help.
Jefferson County is home to a creative and vibrant community. Our proximity to verdant lands, sea, mountains, and fields lends itself to an economy driven by artists, craftspeople, farmers, and makers. We are however experiencing growing, critical challenges to our way of life: a shrinking workforce; a shortage of affordable, permanent housing; a lack of opportunities for youth and support for families.
To preserve all that we love about our home and ensure a future in which all who live here can thrive, we need more than independent acts of charitable giving. We must cultivate a network of changemakers, collaborating on strategic and cumulative impacts. Jefferson Community Foundation facilitates these connections and furnishes our partners with the information and resources necessary to impact acute and lasting change.
Jefferson Community Foundation is funded primarily by people like you who understand that having a central means of connecting—across issues, sectors, geographies, and traditional divides —makes a stronger, more resilient community better able to navigate uncertainty and weather crisis.
By giving to JCF, you are supporting:
- Increased capacity to serve and connect all 30,000+ residents of Jefferson County to meet crises head on and navigate systemic issues with collaboration and innovation.
- A landscape knowledge of needs and opportunities that results in greater cumulative impact by all residents.
- A centralized resource for philanthropic insights and strategies.
- A strong JCF with effective systems, efficient operations, and a culture of equity, accountability, and hope.
How to Support JCF
Your donation of any amount is greatly appreciated and can be made easily online, by mail, or in-person. You may also choose to setup a recurring monthly or annual donation to support JCF.
Meet JCF’s network of Community Builders & Community Investors
If you would like to make a multi-year pledge, become a JCF Community Builder!
Community Builders pledge between $1,000 to $10,000 per year for five years. Now more than ever, JCF needs to remain responsive to connect people who care with causes that matter in Jefferson County. Thank you for supporting JCF!
Make a difference far beyond the measure of one lifetime.
Jefferson Community Foundation’s Legacy Society recognizes individuals who have chosen to leave a lasting legacy in Jefferson County and honors members’ charitable passions while establishing them as philanthropic role models in our community. Legacy Society participants are an inspiration to others to look toward the future and learn how they too can have an enduring impact on the causes they care about.
Legacy Society members can direct their charitable gifts to Jefferson Community Foundation and support:
- Increased capacity to serve and connect all 30,000+ residents of Jefferson County to meet crises head on and navigate systemic issues with collaboration and innovation.
- A landscape knowledge of needs and opportunities that results in greater cumulative impact by all residents.
- A centralized resource for philanthropic insights and strategies.
- A strong JCF with effective systems, efficient operations, and a culture of equity, accountability, and hope.
Or Legacy Society members can donate their “fund” at JCF through a will, trust, designation or other planned gift.
Common types of Legacy Funds include:
- Bequests
Bequests are the simplest and most common form of legacy giving. There are several ways to make a gift of money or assets through your will or trust to advance causes that have been important in your life. If you wish, you can make the bequest contingent on the condition that your primary beneficiaries do not survive you. - Beneficiary Designations
Some assets do not pass according to your will or trust, but instead pass to the person or organization you name in a beneficiary designation. Two of the most common types are life insurance and retirement assets. - Charitable Trusts
Charitable trusts are highly tailored irrevocable planned giving arrangements that allow you to realize several benefits while also supporting causes you care about. For instance, you can establish a trust that supports you or your beneficiaries while you are alive and then gifts the balance to charities—or that supports charitable causes for a specified term and then returns the underlying assets to your primary beneficiaries.
Partner JCF’s philanthropic expertise with your financial, estate, or tax planning team!
JCF recognizes that trusted professional advisors are a valuable source of information and counsel on strategies for legacy giving, and we are ready and able to enhance their ability to create a charitable plan that honors your interests in perpetuity. Learn more!
Jefferson Community Foundation serves as a strategic partner to donors as we administer a wide range of funds on their behalf.