Fund Types

What is a donor-advised fund?

Donor-advised funds are established by donors who wish to actively participate in the grantmaking process. You establish a donor-advised fund with a gift of $5,000 to $100 million or more. After opening your fund, you can recommend grants to the charitable project or organizations you want to support. It is easy to give to multiple nonprofits through a donor-advised fund. You can manage your fund online and grants are issued to nonprofits in the name of the fund (or anonymously if you prefer). It's a simple, powerful, personal approach to giving.

How a donor-advised fund works

When you create a business-advised fund, we can support your company's goals with a full spectrum of services, including grantmaking, due diligence, site visits and community updates. You work with our staff to identify ongoing uses for your fund, targeting the issues you care about most. Grant awards are issued to nonprofits in the name of the fund (or anonymously if you prefer). It's a simple, powerful, highly customized approach to corporate giving.

Establishing a designated fund allows you to support the good work of a specific organization that has touched your life. Because we handle the details of managing the fund, it provides the organization you select with funding, planned giving and investment management services. This way, the nonprofit organization’s staff is freed up to focus on its mission. 

When you establish a scholarship fund with Communities Foundation of Texas, you give deserving students the opportunity to pursue their dreams while achieving your own charitable goals. Scholarship funds can be structured to benefit students at any education level or institution. Whether you want to establish a legacy or honor a loved one, give back to your community or your alma mater, we will work with you to create a scholarship that is uniquely your own.

Nonprofit organizations establish a fund with us to grow assets to meet both current and future needs. Nonprofit agency funds provide a simple and efficient way to build an endowment or a reserve — and help create sustainability — for your nonprofit organization. Nonprofits look to our board of trustees for strong investment oversight services and ask our staff to manage all of the administrative details. Plus, our staff can also help you develop planned giving programs and assist with investment management and administrative details. All of this frees the nonprofit to focus on what it does best in the community.

This fund is used when donors give to the foundation and entrust CFT to use the money to better our community.

If you have a particular charitable passion area (arts, education, the elderly, etc.) but do not want to be involved in the details of grantmaking, donating to a field of interest fund is perfect for you! Field of interest funds are often established to support particular interest areas, specific program initiatives, causes or geographic areas. You give the financial resources and the general "field" to support, and we select the grantees through our thorough due diligence process. We manage 13 different general interest funds and call for nonprofit proposals to fund these areas every year.

If your passion area is not reflected, we can open a new field of interest fund in your desired focus area and manage charitable grantmaking on your behalf with your gift.