Adopted by Community Foundations Leadership Team on September 15, 2008

A community foundation is a tax-exempt, nonprofit, autonomous, publicly supported, nonsectarian philanthropic institution with a long term goal of building permanent, named component funds established by many separate donors to carry out their charitable interests and for the broad-based charitable interest of and for the benefit of residents of a defined geographic area.

 

A community foundation meets all of the following:

 

1. Is officially recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) and passes the public support test as a public charity under sections 509(a)(1) and 170(b)(1)(A)(vi).   An organization that otherwise meets the definition of a community foundation except that it is a supporting organization described in section 509(a)(3) will meet this requirement if it supports a community foundation that is described in section 509(a)(1) and 170(b)(1)(A)(vi).

 

 2. Has or is developing a history of broad support in the form of contributions from the community it serves.

 

3. Has an independent, nonsectarian, governing body broadly representative of the public interest and that is not appointed by a single outside entity.  A section 509(a)(3) organization that otherwise meets the definition of a community foundation will meet this requirement even if a community foundation appoints its governing board.

 

4. Has the power described in Treas. Reg. 1.170A-9(e)(11)(B) to modify any restriction or condition on the distribution of assets, if circumstances warrant (variance power).

 

5. Operates primarily as a grantmaking institution, provides leadership on key issues affecting the community, and may also offer direct charitable services.

 

6. Focuses its primary grantmaking and charitable services within a defined local geographic area, such as a municipality, county, state, metropolitan area or closely related aggregation of such areas, that constitutes, in some meaningful sense, a “community”  A community typically is no larger than one state although a community may include parts of several states.

 

7. Maintains a broad grants program to multiple grantees that is neither limited by field of interest nor limited to serving only parts of the population.

 

8. Is structured primarily as a collection of named funds that carry out the diverse charitable purposes specified by the governing body and donors, and has a long-term goal to increase the assets held as endowment.