Undesignated Funds
When you endow an undesignated fund, you allow the Community Foundation’s staff and board to determine where grants from your fund will have the greatest impact in the community. This is a flexible giving option that is designed to meet changing community needs over time.

Field of Interest Funds
When you endow a field-of-interest fund, you stipulate a charitable cause of your choice, such as education, the arts, the environment, or children’s issues, that grants will support.

Scholarship Funds
Scholarship and award funds are designed to help Berks County students continue their education after high school. As an alternative to a scholarship fund, some donors create a field-of-interest fund that makes grants to schools or organizations for a specific educational or extra-curricular cause, such as music, science, history or sports.

Designated Funds
When you endow a designated fund, you select one or more specific charitable organizations to receive a regular grant from the fund each year. Designated funds let donors support specific organizations while the Community Foundation makes sure the grants remain relevant over time and responsive to changing circumstances.

Memorial Funds
Memorial Funds are charitable accounts set up through the Community Foundation to accept donations in memory of someone who has died. Those donations are then used to benefit a charity or cause the person cared about. Memorial Funds are particularly beneficial to families when a loved one dies unexpectedly. The family can set up the fund while making funeral arrangements and decide later how gifts can be used to best honor their loved one and celebrate the way he or she lived.

Donor Advised Funds
When you create a Donor Advised Fund, you remain active in your philanthropy. Each year, you recommend which charitable organizations or causes you’d like grants to go to, subject to the approval of the foundation’s board of directors. Upon your death, you may name a “successor advisor” to make recommendations in your place. Following the successor advisor’s term, an endowed donor advised fund will become either a field of interest fund or an undesignated fund, depending on your preference.

Pass-through Funds
Although the Community Foundation was established to develop and manage permanent endowments, donors may choose to use the Community Foundation as a conduit for pass-through gifts, where the fund’s principle is depleted over time.
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To determine the method, or mix of methods, that make the most sense for structuring a gift through Berks County Community Foundation, this information should be reviewed with a competent financial, tax or estate planner.