Tips for tough times | Corporate giving | Good news about donor-advised funds

Greetings from DCCF!

We are rounding the corner to the last quarter of 2025, and it’s an important time to check in on current charitable giving strategies and how DCCF can help you stay up to date. It’s been a busy and eventful year, especially where tax policy and other economic factors are concerned.

• DCCF is happy to share three tips for pushing through the tough times that are facing many nonprofit organizations in our community. From getting back to basics, to maintaining your innovative edge, to doubling down on current donor relationships, a few key principles can help guide you and your team during the months ahead.
• The charitable deduction rules for corporations are changing, and you’ll want to be equipped with at least the basics so you can get a jump on outreach strategies to corporate donors. DCCF is always here as a sounding board.
• Our team fields lots of good questions from nonprofit organizations about donor-advised funds at DCCF. We’re happy to provide a quick refresher on how these funds work and how they help grow your mission.  

Thank you for all you do for our community! We are grateful for our partnership and look forward to collaborating during the busy year-end months of 2025. 

Lori Sellers Trenholm,
Director of Community Investment

Three tips for tough times

It’s certainly no secret that times are tough. Nonprofits in our community are facing mounting pressures as inflation drives up operating costs, pandemic-era relief funds have expired, and demand for services continues to climb. At DCCF, we are honored to work with local charities that are powering through the obstacles to engage donors and keep charitable dollars flowing to support important work, all while keeping an eye on long-term prospects for legacy gifts and endowment growth. Here are strategies that are working for many charities:

Focus on financial basics
Of course, during good times and bad, nonprofit organizations are encouraged to strengthen financial management practices by closely monitoring cash flow, improving transparency, and enhancing reporting to build trust and stability with stakeholders. What’s new for some organizations in 2025 is stepping up communications with donors on these fundamental topics, both in marketing strategies and in one-on-one meetings. For example, if your organization’s endowment fund is managed at DCCF, it’s worth considering leaning on that as a talking point to inspire confidence among your donors.

Stay innovative
It’s easy to see why some organizations get caught in “hunker down” mode when times are tough. Perhaps counterintuitively, though, challenging economic conditions can often serve as inspiration for nonprofits to innovate operationally—streamlining processes, adopting new technologies, and rethinking traditional service models—to improve efficiency and impact. This is also an area where DCCF can help. To streamline your ability to accept gifts of noncash assets, for example, the community foundation can serve as your back office to receive “alternative” donations. 

Cultivate current donors
Taking care of your biggest fans is tried and true advice. Certainly you’ll always want to be on the lookout for new donors, but that work ought not diminish ongoing efforts to build strong relationships with your current donors. Recurring donations, for instance, not only offer nonprofits a predictable and stable funding stream, but they’re also a strong sign of donor loyalty. Indeed, recurring donors demonstrate significantly higher retention and tend to remain committed for many years compared to one-time donors. Long-term donor relationships also pave the way for meaningful conversations about legacy and endowment giving. 

Please reach out to DCCF. We are happy to be a sounding board to help your mission stay strong, in good times and in bad!
 

Engaging corporate donors in the OBBBA era

The dust is settling on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), signed into law on July 4, 2025. Charities are beginning to wrap their arms around the new law’s significant shift in the tax treatment of corporate charitable donations. 

Beginning in 2026, a new 1% floor will apply, meaning corporations must donate more than 1% of taxable income before any charitable contributions become deductible. This limitation is in addition to the current 10% “ceiling.” Navigating these two laws, along with the five-year carryforward rules for unused deductions, will present challenges for both charities and the companies that support them. 

So what can you do? Here are three suggestions: 

1. Get a jump on the issue this year before the new law kicks in. Reach out proactively to your corporate donors and offer to meet with their finance teams to help structure donations in 2025 to maximize tax benefits. 
2. Get up to speed on how a “bunching” strategy—deliberately combining multiple years of giving into one larger gift year to surpass the 1% floor—might work in 2026 and beyond. With careful planning and coordination with corporate donors, you can take steps to blunt the effect of feast or famine donation cycles that could make it hard for your organization to budget and plan its programs. 
3. Keep in mind that companies may still be able to deduct charity sponsorships as marketing expenses if the payment provides a direct business benefit, such as advertising, rather than being considered a pure charitable donation. Under IRS rules, a business will need to substantiate the benefit received. Note also that your organization will need to properly account for this support on your end of the transaction, including determining whether to report it as “unrelated taxable income.” 

As is the case with any tax rules—and especially new rules that are not yet well understood—the issues are complex with lots of legal twists and turns!

Reach out to your legal and tax advisors to get up to speed on how the new rules might impact your own specific situation, and consider DCCF as a sounding board in those discussions. We are here to help! 
 

Good news about donor-advised funds

Understandably, nonprofits often worry that donor-advised funds may delay or diminish their donors’ contributions. In reality, though, donor-advised funds can be very helpful to boost financial support for your mission. Three fundamental concepts are important to gaining a better understanding of how donor-advised funds work at the community foundation.

Many options are available at DCCF.
It’s important to note that a donor-advised fund is just one of many types of funds that an individual, family, or business can establish with DCCF. You’re likely more aware of donor-advised funds than other types of funds because they are frequently covered in financial media and also because your organization might have received grants from specific donors through their donor-advised funds. Dollars in donor-advised funds are already set aside for charitable giving, and it’s very convenient for donors to use their funds to support favorite organizations–like yours.

DCCF encourages donors to give directly.
Rest assured that the team at DCCF encourages donors to give directly to their favorite charities when that’s the best strategy to achieve a donor’s estate planning, tax, and charitable goals. When that’s not a viable option, though, both the donor and the charity benefit from the donor using a donor-advised or other type of fund at DCCF. Examples include cases where the donor wants to give a complex asset, such as real estate or closely-held stock, or needs to plan out several years of giving to address fluctuating income levels and tax liability. Some donors also prefer to give anonymously, and a donor-advised fund can help with that.  

Donor-advised funds are becoming increasingly popular. 
Donor-advised funds are attractive vehicles to help donors organize their giving. In turn, donor-advised fund sponsors—including community foundations—continue to channel billions of dollars in contributions annually to thousands of charities through these vehicles. When donors begin giving through a donor-advised fund, their annual support for organizations often increases significantly, underscoring donor-advised funds’ potential to deepen long-term donor engagement. 

DCCF is always happy to provide an overview of how these vehicles work and why donors set them up in the first place. Please reach out anytime.