Case Studies

Donor Fund Examples

Donor advised funds are the most popular types fund currently held at the Community Foundation. This type of fund is a charitable giving vehicle administered by a third party (such as The Community Foundation for Ireland) and created for the purpose of managing charitable donations on behalf of an organisation, family, or individual. A donor-advised fund offers the opportunity to create an easy-to-establish, low cost, flexible vehicle for charitable giving as an alternative to direct giving or a private foundation. Donors enjoy administrative convenience, cost savings and tax advantages by conducting their grantmaking through the fund.

Donor Advised Family Fund: Dr Alison Byrne Memorial Fund

Harry Byrne is a board member at The Community Foundation for Ireland. He retired from Guinness Ireland as Assistant Managing Director in 1996. Harry’s daughter, Alison, tragically died in her thirties. She had worked as a doctor and Harry has established The Dr Alison Byrne Fund in her memory which now supports medical related projects. "As a Director of The Foundation I see the important contribution the income from the endowment funds makes for so many community groups through the country and this inspired me to set up the Alison Byrne fund."

Beneficiaries to date have included The Alzheimer Society Of Ireland - to help fund social outings for those with Alzheimer’s and their carers, Bray Cancer Support and Information Centre - to fund the purchase of equipment, and the Irish Heart Foundation for CPR training for transition year students.

Donor Advised Family Fund: The Callery Family Fund

Jim and Adeline Callery, natives of Roscommon, have set up a family fund at The Community Foundation. Jim is well known for his entrepreneurship and leadership. Starting out in farming, Jim moved into the transport sector and brought the Scania franchise to Ireland in the mid seventies through his locally-based motor distribution company, The Westward Group. In recent years Jim has reduced his involvement with the company and began investing more time in local development projects. He is well known for the restoration of Strokestown Park House and the Irish National Famine Museum in Co. Roscommon which was heavily supported by capital injections from The Westward Group.

In 2004 Jim and his family set up a philanthropic fund through The Community Foundation for Ireland to assist local community projects. It is primarily targeted at projects in his native Roscommon. There are a lot of people and families in Ireland who have become much better off over the last couple of decades due to our economic boom. However there are still a lot of worthy causes and local Voluntary Community Groups who need much help.

“People who have made some money or a lot of money themselves generally had very little time during their working lives to consider the needs of others. It is only as you get older in life that you begin to realise these things. I think, when you and your family are provided for, there is a duty to be helpful to others in a financial way.

As well as giving to charity, there is always a need for financial help for people involved in local community efforts in their own areas as they often find it very difficult to raise funds for what they are doing. So when I came across The Community Foundation for Ireland I thought that this was an ideal and very tax efficient way to channel funds to local efforts among one’s own community.

There are some people who may think the preferred route is setting up their own Trusts but one must look to the future. Trusts are things that have to be managed, and in time to come, future generations may not thank you for putting this burden on them. I find that The Community Foundation for Ireland has worked very well for me under the capable leadership

of Tina Roche so why bother putting the imposition of a Trust on your family?”

Donor Advised Family Fund 2008

In 2008 a significant family fund was established at The Community Foundation for Ireland. The fund is anonymous and will be donor advised. Both the parents and children are actively involved in advising on the fund and as a result the fund supports a number of different areas that are of interest to each member of the family. The Community Foundation for Ireland worked closely with the family to help to identify suitable recipients for grants in each of the areas of interest. Looking to the longer term, the fund has been structured to facilitate the next generations – if they so wish - to potentially take up the mantle also. The donor has said that “using the umbrella structure of the Community Foundation alleviated many of the issues to be addressed when setting up a ‘Family Foundation’ and was achieved very quickly and at a much lower cost”.

To date the private family fund has supported Irish Autism Action for the Solas Project to provide early assessment and diagnosis of Autism and Autism-related disorders. Additionally it is currently supporting The Hope Foundation to carry out a multi-annual Primary Healthcare Project for the street children of Calcutta. Grants have also been made from this fund to the Federation of Irish Sports, The Ark: A Cultural Centre for Children, An Cosán and St Louise’s School in Ballyfermot.

All grantmaking is carefully monitored by The Community Foundation, with staged payments based on the achievements of agreed outcomes. The donor is kept informed of the impacts of their grant and depending on their level of interest, can be invited to participate in the project in question, where appropriate.

Support your county: The Community Foundation seeks to inspire people to help develop a permanent fund for their own county. We want every county in Ireland to have its own designated charitable fund. It should have the capacity to support projects within the county forever. We can also provide matching funding to get the fund started. See below for an example of the first ever County Fund in Ireland and the impacts it has had to date.

Click here for more information on county funds

Setting up a County Fund: The Co Monaghan Fund

In 2004, The Co Monaghan Fund was established. Chaired by well-known local businessman, Frank Cosgrove, a county endowment fund of nearly €350,000 has already been put in place. Among its projects, The Monaghan Fund has already funded a successful entrepreneurship programme for students in the secondary schools in the county. They also provide support to young students looking to continue their studies to third level by funding scholarships and have also funded a defibrillator training course which is being rolled out across the county to all sport and community groups. This has already proved to be an invaluable investment with one person’s life being saved. They have also made an initial grant of €1,000 to Croí. This helped Croí to source an additional €100,000 and clearly demonstrates the value of a fund being in place to provide such ‘philanthropic seed capital’. A number of donors are leading this initiative and in late 2006 a Development Officer was hired to advance the fund.

Corporate Fund Examples

The SAP Business Objects Fund

In 2008 Business Objects, the largest business intelligence company in the world, (now part of SAP), with over 200 staff in Dublin established ‘The Business Objects Fund’ at The Community Foundation for Ireland.
"We were amazed by the level of commitment, support and advice provided by this organisation throughout the grant process. Our contacts perfectly understood the object/mission of our corporate foundation, knew very well the charity network locally, therefore identified appropriate charities in the Dublin area that were willing to apply for funding. The Community Foundation then initiated the first contacts with them and even organised the visits for our employees who were involved in the granting process. They were strong advisors during our corporate decision making meeting and eventually communicated our decisions to the charities that had applied for funding. If we had to rank the Community Foundation for Ireland amongst our other partners, they would certainly come among the first for all the reasons detailed before and for their high professionalism. We're now looking forward to working again with them for the next grant cycle!”

Speaking about the projects Claire Gillissen-Duval from SAP outlines the benefits of the partnership. “Since 2003 we have partnered with strong community foundation organisations through the world, to advise us on our local grant making to support education for vulnerable children and youth. These include The Vancouver Foundation in Canada, Fondation de France in France, the Silicon Valley Community Foundation in the USA and The Berkshire Community Foundation for the UK. It has been a great pleasure to work with the Community Foundation for Ireland."

By the start of 2010, over €42,000 in grants, have been made from this fund. Projects funded have an educational focus and grants were made for a specific intervention in response to a demonstrated need. Recipients have included Fatima Regeneration Board, Our Lady of Victories School in Ballymun, An Síol CDP, Deansrath Family Centre and Athenry Adolescent Support Programme.

The Xilinx Community Fund Europe

The Xilinx Community Fund Europe at The Community Foundation for Ireland was established in 2006. By early 2010 over €280,000 in grants had been made from this fund. The company matches employee donations to charity and these account for a lot of grants made. Additionally the fund has a particular focus on projects in the local community which have an emphasis on Science, Technology and Education. Some recent grant recipients include Talbot Senior National School in Clondalkin for technology equipment, the Salesian Sisters in Ballyfermot for a Children’s Health project, and DCU Educational Trust for four educational scholarships. Speaking about their fund a spokesperson for the companies said “We in Xilinx have been very pleased with our relationship with The Community Foundation for Ireland, they have been extremely professional in all our dealings with them and have greatly simplified the process of grant giving both for Xilinx and for the grant recipients."

Supporting a Specific Overseas Charity

The SPPD Ireland Fund

After Paddy Doolan retired he was asked to mentor a growing Indian grassroots charity called The Society for Poor People Development (SPPD) and fundraise for them in Ireland and elsewhere. Its objective is to make access to education and health, food and shelter a reality for children living in rural parts of Central Tamil Nadu in India. He looked at setting up an Irish registered charity but was put off by the red tape involved and the waiting time of two years before donors could give tax efficiently. The number of donors was expected to be limited and he didn’t feel the scale of fundraising merited the setting up of a new organisation.

Paddy heard about The Community Foundation and soon afterwards, after due diligence was undertaken about the Indian charity on the part of The Foundation, The SPPD Ireland Fund was born in 2008. Among the practical benefits for Paddy are that The Community Foundation maintains the records (backed up daily on our database) of all donations to The SPPD Ireland Fund, completes the periodic transfers of monies to India, he doesn’t need to undertake an audit as The Fund is part of The Community Foundation’s overall audit and he can offer tax relief to Irish donors immediately. He could also offer tax relief immediately to donors to SPPD in a number of other European countries through Transnational Giving Europe, of which The Community Foundation is a member.

By early 2010 the SPPD Ireland Fund had collected over €32,000 in donations for dispersal to SPPD in India.

Charitable Donations or Legacies to Community Foundations outside of Ireland

While The Foundation is aware that people have included it in their will, no charitable bequests had been received by 2010. So as such, UK examples are provided to help paint a picture of what may happen here.

The Community Foundation serving Tyne & Wear and Northumberland

Douglas Kellett was a businessman who died in 1987. He owned much of the land upon which Washington New Town (in the North East of England) is built. Mr Kellett left his estate in trust to his wife during her lifetime and thereafter to charity. Following the death of his wife Gwen in 1996, the Kellett Fund was established at the Community Foundation serving Tyne & Wear and Northumberland to benefit older people. The £5 million legacy is one of the largest single donations to a UK community foundation. It is now worth £7 million and has awarded grants of over £3.4 million.

The Community Foundation for Wiltshire and Swindon

In 2007, The Community Foundation for Wiltshire and Swindon received a legacy of £2.2 million from a local couple, Brian and Marie Shuker, to be used for ‘supporting young people in our community to attend higher education’. The legacy was part cash and part property.

The Derbyshire Community Foundation

When Tom Carey, an entrepreneur, passed away he left a £2 million legacy to Derbyshire Community Foundation (UK). In 2009 it was used to set up an endowment fund to support groups in Derby in the area he grew up in. The fund will contribute towards improving the quality of life of local residents.

See also