Private foundations and school giving

[Anonymous]

This is just a PSA, because I didn’t know about this until I married into a wealthy family.

When you’re comparing giving rates for any nonprofit, you might see some families giving through a private foundation, or they might be doing it but it might just be acknowledged directly to them as a donor.

These private foundations can be funded by estate planning vehicles like a charitable lead trust. That is a set up where an asset has to give X% to charity for X years, then it can pass to a non-charitable beneficiary without having to go through the estate tax process. Grandparents at your school might have done a set up like this.

So hooray, this clearly makes no difference to the school/nonprofit and it’s still very important support, but those families are not sitting around the kitchen table with their budgets deciding how much to give. The money is not available to them personally, and they have to pick nonprofits to donate it to. The school is not competing with a kitchen renovation or a retirement fund.

So anyway this is another good reason to not stress about giving levels or comparing to other families, and imo it’s important context.

[Anonymous]

Interesting. Thank you