donor designated funds
Provide a long-term, growing stream of income for an organization you value without adding investment management to its priorities.
it’s easy to do
Contact the Foundation to create an endowment fund for the benefit of a designated organization. We’ll work with you to develop a letter of agreement identifying the beneficiary organization, the fund name, and the amount of the gift you’ll make to establish the fund. The agreement will convey your intentions in the event the designated organization dissolves, merges into another organization, or changes its mission.
The minimum gift to create a donor designated fund is $10,000, but we counsel you to think of $25,000 as a starting point so the fund beneficiary will receive a more useful distribution, even in the first year. Creating a fund for another organization creates tax benefits similar to other charitable gifts; consult your advisor for details.
how your fund can grow
Like all ECF endowments, donor designated funds are invested to provide income and to grow over time, so if your plan is to provide gifts for anything other than general operating support, we will incorporate provisions in the agreement to ensure your goals are achieved when the fund has doubled or tripled in size. Of course you or other community members can continue to add to the fund.
current donor designated funds
Fund for Curt’s Café • Provides job and life skills training, career coaching, and job placement for youth ex-offenders and at-risk youths in order to enable successful reentry into the Evanston community.
Evanston Men Promise Award Fund for Evanston Scholars • Supports annual award(s) to honor high achieving participants in Evanston Scholars who exhibit exemplary character, with a preference for senior male students whose families face challenges to college access.
Foster Reading Center Fund • Supports this after-school program to increase reading skills and provide readers in home daycare settings.
Grandmother Park Fund • Supports the upkeep of Grandmother Park, a playlot for toddlers and their families or caregivers.
Susan Willis Heiberger Memorial Garden Fund • Maintains the Heiberger Memorial Garden at ETHS.
Rayna and Marvin Miller Fund for Open Communities • Advocates for fair and affordable housing
Chuck Remen Memorial Fund • Benefits Project SOAR at the McGaw YMCA.
YWCA Evanston/North Shore Education Fund • Provides education scholarships for Evanston girls and young women, consistent with the mission of the YWCA.
current scholarship and award funds
Virginia L. and William K. Beatty MLA Volunteer Service Award • Recognizes a medical librarian who has demonstrated service to the Medical Library Association and the health sciences library profession.
Beatty Family Scholarship Fund • Provides assistance to three college-bound ETHS graduates with interest and achievement in the areas of foreign language, journalism or writing, and science, honoring the children of Virginia L. and William K. Beatty: Carol, Margaret and William B.K. Beatty.
William K. Beatty Medical History Prize • Honors outstanding research in the field of medical history.
Chicago Urban Youth Scholarship Fund • Provides tuition assistance to students in programs of Midtown Educational Foundation, Chicago.
Bruce E. Mitchell Short Story Fund • Provides annual awards recognizing outstanding short stories by ETHS juniors.
Norman W. Thomas Jr. Scholarship Fund • Provides college or technical school scholarship assistance to a graduating ETHS senior.
Rose and Andy Thomas Educational Fund • Provides scholarship assistance to a graduating ETHS senior who is a first or second generation resident of the USA and/or has an interest in international travel and studies; supports early childhood education and anti-hunger initiatives.
advantage of creating your fund with ECF
Whatever changes may take place years from now, the Foundation’s Articles of Incorporation give the ECF board latitude to modify the fund purpose in the event distributions to the original beneficiary become unnecessary, impossible, or inconsistent with community needs — without going to court to do so. Thus the charitable intentions you set forth in the fund agreement will guide the use of your fund in perpetuity, even if changes take place in the original beneficiary.