Donor Advised Funds

Stay involved in the good works that your gifts make possible.

Donor Advised Funds are an ideal vehicle for donors with a range of community interests to fulfill their charitable wishes. Donor Advised Funds are typically less costly and easier to administer than family or corporate foundations).

When you make a gift of cash, appreciated stock, or other assets to the Pasadena Community Foundation, we can establish a Donor Advised Fund in your name. The donor acts as advisor to the fund and can recommend grants to charitable organizations they wish to support anywhere in the country. Grants are issued to charities in the name of your fund (or anonymously if you prefer). It’s a simple, powerful and highly personal approach to giving.

Donors can choose to establish an expendable fund for current giving and an endowment fund for future giving. Such funds have been compared to philanthropic “checking” and “savings” accounts.

Donor Advised Expendable Funds

Donor Advised Expendable Funds can be opened with a minimum gift of $1,000. The fund balance can be distributed over time to many organizations.

Donor Advised Investment Funds

Donor Advised Expendable Funds can be opened with a minimum gift of $50,000. The fund balance can be distributed over time to many organizations. This fund is appropriate for donors with a long term giving horizon. The fund is invested in a in a professionally-managed portfolio with a long term plan for spending down the assets of the fund.

Donor Advised Endowment Funds

With a Donor Advised Endowment Fund, the minimum initial gift of $10,000 is invested in a professionally-managed portfolio. The general investment strategy is to provide prudent management of invested capital while producing a reasonable income for grant making and growth of assets over time. While the corpus of the fund grows over time, the donor can make an annual payout from the fund to one or more charitable organizations.

PCF will work with donors who wish to build a permanent endowment fund over time.

Call and ask about our:
Donor Advised Fund Options, Fee Schedule, Stock Transfer Instructions

The Thomas Harris Family Endowment Fund

“We have been blessed in life and it’s a good feeling to share those blessings with others.”

Tom started a business in Pasadena, Optical Research Associates, specializing in engineering services and software for optics. When he retired the firm had grown from 1 to 93 employees. Through an Employee Stock Ownership Plan the owners sold the company to the employees over time to allow them to share in the profits of what they had helped to build. Tom and his wife Marcie also started a private foundation as a way to give back to the community in which they had raised their family and built their business.

In 2008, they terminated their private foundation and transferred the assets to the Pasadena Community Foundation to create a donor advised endowment fund. Along with their two sons, Tom and Richard, they will continue to support Pasadena-area non-profits through grants from the Thomas Harris Family Fund at PCF. “We get all the benefits of having the family come together to select worthy causes with none of the administrative duties required by a private foundation,” says Tom.

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