Last week we talked about considering making a charitable contribution as a method for holiday gift-giving. Whether through a national online service or through a specific nonprofit, giving a donation is a way of ensuring that your gift is returned to the global or local community, never to a store.
Another way of giving is to focus on the needs of Idaho. An organization that provides both broad and specific support throughout the state is the Idaho Community Foundation. Whether as a charitable holiday gift or as part of your own year-end giving, ICF can help provide good stewardship and allocation of resources with an eye on the needs of our state.
The Idaho Community Foundation is a statewide nonprofit organization composed of over 370 individual funds, pooled together for efficient management. To achieve its mission of enriching the quality of life throughout Idaho, ICF accepts and invests funds from donors and grants the funds for a broad variety of philanthropic projects statewide.
Since its inception in 1988, ICF has made charitable distributions in Idaho totaling more than $31 million. In the last calendar year alone, the Foundation awarded grants totaling $4.5 million to nonprofit groups in all of Idaho’s 44 counties.
You can choose to donate to one of the hundreds of existing funds, a list of which is available on ICF’s website. Such funds include scholarships for particular areas of study, support of regional area or local needs, assisting in statewide conservation, and others.
You can also choose to establish your own fund and determine its objectives and guidelines. The kinds of such funds, as well as information on initial monetary requirements, are available on ICF’s website.
If you don’t have a specific philanthropy in mind, you can make a donation to one of the “Greatest Need” funds which address the ever-changing needs throughout Idaho, including regional needs.
For more information on the Idaho Community Foundation, go to www.idcomfdn.org or call 342.3535.
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