If you represent a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization in Bell, Clay, Knox, Magoffin, or Whitley counties, an upcoming regional session on Feb. 29 will show you how to take awareness of your programs and giving to your organization to the next level.
Blue Grass Community Foundation and The Center for Rural Development will outline a trio of tools for nonprofits—the GoodGiving.net website, Appalachian Rural Development Philanthropy Initiative (ARDPI), and the Endow Kentucky Tax Credit—at the session, scheduled for Wednesday, Feb. 29, from 1:30-3:30 p.m. at the Kentucky Highlands Investment Corporation headquarters at 362 Old Whitley Road, London.
Attendance is free and open to staff and board members of 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations in the five counties.
Topics to be covered include:
GoodGiving.net
GoodGiving.net is a new online resource for nonprofits to inform, empower, and enrich charitable giving in the region. Visitors will be able to access information you provide and make credit card contributions to your organization. To date, 185 Kentucky nonprofits have already discovered the many benefits of GoodGiving.net, a free online resource.
ARDPI
According to the Kentucky Philanthropy Initiative’s 2010 Transfer of Wealth study, a reinvestment of just 5 percent of the $707 billion set to transfer from Kentuckians to the next generation over the next 50 years could have a significant, long-lasting impact on economic development and quality of life.
The new Appalachian Rural Development Philanthropy Initiative (ARDPI) aims to push toward that goal by building and expanding permanent charitable community endowments in partnership with Eastern Kentucky communities that will work to stop the outmigration of the region’s wealth and secure local assets to provide long-term resources for their communities.
Endow Kentucky Tax Credit
The Endow Kentucky Tax Credit program offers taxpayers an opportunity to help their community and receive a tax credit toward their Kentucky Income Tax. For a contribution to endowed permanent funds at qualified community foundations, a taxpayer may receive 20 percent income tax credit not to exceed $10,000 per donor per taxable year. $500,000 in tax credits was authorized for fiscal years 2011 and 2012.
The Center and Blue Grass Community Foundation are two of seven Kentucky-based partners in ARDPI. Others include the Brushy Fork Institute, the Foundation for Appalachian Kentucky, the Foundation for the Tri-State Community, Inc., Kentucky Philanthropy Initiative, and the Endow Kentucky Commission.
ARDPI’s goal is to build and expand permanent charitable endowments in partnership with Eastern Kentucky communities.
“The Center for Rural Development strongly believes in the mission of all of these nonprofit tools because they work in different ways to keep the wealth of our region here in our region,” said Lonnie Lawson, president and CEO of The Center for Rural Development.
“We are excited about the potential of this partnership to grow charitable giving and citizen engagement across the region—helping communities to better guide their own destinies,” said Lisa Adkins, president and CEO of Blue Grass Community Foundation. “We are committed to ensuring that philanthropy is simple, effective, locally-directed and accessible to all.”
Lawson cited as an example the success of a Nebraska community that—despite having only 700 citizens—raised charitable endowments of $2 million. The community now uses interest from these endowments, in part, to offer college scholarships to all of the community’s youth.
“If we can do something similar in Southern and Eastern Kentucky through the power of community foundations and charitable endowments,” Lawson said, “we can help fund existing and potential programs and services that will benefit our citizens and stimulate the economies of our counties for decades to come.”
For more information on the Feb. 29 session or ARDPI, contact Mable Duke, ARDPI consultant at The Center, at 606-677-6082. For more information on GoodGiving.net, contact Barbara A. Fischer at Blue Grass Community Foundation at 859-225-3343.
