The Adams County Community Foundation exists to build a permanent charitable endowment for Adams County. We call it the Fund for Adams County. And from that endowment, we support community grantmaking, initiatives like the Giving Spree, and advocacy that strengthens charitable giving here at home, across Pennsylvania, and nationally.
Here’s what we’ve learned: donors don’t all respond the same way.
Some respond to direct mail. Others to a gala, a golf outing, or a conversation over coffee. And they don’t all give for the same reasons, either. Some want to make an annual unrestricted gift. Others want to support a specific program or a building project.
And then there’s a growing group of donors who choose endowment.
Endowment gifts are different. They’re permanently invested to generate support for a nonprofit—year after year after year.
During the Giving Spree, we invite donors to make what we call a “forever” gift. It’s a one-time gift that builds a nonprofit’s endowment and increases the annual support that nonprofit receives going forward. It’s not an annual gift from the donor. It’s an annual distribution from the endowment.
Endowment donors understand something important: nonprofits don’t just need money for today. They need a reliable source of income to support their people, their programs, and their buildings—and to be ready for whatever comes next.
Over the past nine years, donors have created or added to 114 nonprofit endowments held and invested at the Community Foundation. And many nonprofits, including SCCAP, the Land Conservancy of Adams County, Main Street Gettysburg, the Gettysburg Garden Club, have embraced those donors and celebrated them. The result has been tremendous.
That’s why the Community Foundation includes an endowment giving option in the Giving Spree.
And yet, as practical as this is, endowment donors are still often overlooked by nonprofits large and small.
Main Street Gettysburg gets it. They talk about “no elephants without hay.” In other words, if you build something, you also need to sustain it.
They raised the money to build the Welcome Center in Gettysburg. Now they’re focused on raising a $1,000,000 endowment to maintain it—so it’s not a burden down the road.
And endowment isn’t just about buildings.
The annual distribution from an endowment can support operations. It can help a nonprofit grow when demand increases. And it can provide stability when fundraising gets tough.
So this year, I’d ask you to think a little differently. Consider making a long-term investment in the nonprofits you care about with a gift to their endowment at the Community Foundation. Or consider supporting the Fund for Adams County—our community grantmaking endowment that will always be there to meet the needs of this community as they change over time.
And I’m curious—what nonprofits do you think would benefit from a growing operating endowment? I’d like to know. Call me at 717-337-0060 or email me at rs****@***********cf.org.
Ralph Serpe is President & CEO of the Adams County Community Foundation. He serves on the board of the Adams Economic Alliance and the National Standards Board for U.S. Community Foundations, and recently received the inaugural Excellence in Community Foundation Leadership Award from the Council on Foundations in Washington, DC.