About Certification: Resource Development

BACK: Governance

NATIONAL STANDARDS FOR U.S. COMMUNITY FOUNDATIONS (developed by the Council on Foundations)

III. Resource Development
A. A community foundation has, or works to develop, broad support in the form of contributions from many separate, unrelated donors with diverse charitable interests in the community served by the community foundation.

B. Contributions to a community foundation represent irrevocable gifts subject to the legal and fiduciary control of the community foundation's governing body.

C. A community foundation has a long-term goal of securing resources to address the changing needs of the community it serves.
Explanation: Building discretionary funds to provide both flexible and permanent funding sources for meeting changing needs should be a goal of the community foundation.

D. A community foundation accepts and administers a diversity of gift and fund types to meet the varied philanthropic objectives of donors.

E. A community foundation adopts gift and fund acceptance policies that address minimum fund size, types of fund options, types of gift mechanisms, and policies and procedures for accepting various types of assets, and makes these policies available upon request.
Explanation: This item promotes accountability, policy and process disclosure, and consistency. Fund acceptance policies include purpose and useof the fund.

F. During the gift planning process, the role and relationships of all parties involved are fully disclosed to the donor.
Explanation: The intent is to disclose any financial benefit that might accrue to a third-party participant in the gift planning process.

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