Feature
work within the community. These donors
often have an idea of their goals, often
needing minimal direction and guidance.
For these types of donors, the RACF has
an online system that donors can log into
and make grants how they see fit. This
online system also hosts a compilation of
reports of charitable programs and their
effectiveness. “That is a great resource for
donors to decide where to designate funds”
says Miller.
In addition to the direct donors, the RACF
has a professional advisor liaison committee.
The committee members consisting of
attorneys, tax planners, CPAs, and financial
planners reach out to their colleagues. They
host seminars and open houses a couple times
a year and they send out quarterly e-blasts
out to their network. This is essential for
the RACF as their typical donor is already
working with a business professional.
Other times, donors come into the RACF
with an idea of what charity they would
like to give to, but had not narrowed down
the intent of their giving. For example, an
animal lover might want to donate all their
money to Lollypop Farm (The Humane
Society of Greater Rochester), but it is up
to the RACF to dig a little deeper to find
out exactly what their intentions are. “We
talk to donors about really understanding
what their charitable interests are.” Miller
explains.
The RACF tries to help donors understand
needs are constantly changing over time.
“If we were to look back 50 or 60 years ago
and say, ‘What are the two biggest issues?’
it would have been polio and civil rights, if
we went back to the 80s the issue would be
AIDS, and if we went back 6 months ago,
it would have been Ebola,” Miller said. “So
issues continue to change over time …”
Therefore, for donors that want to give,
but do not have a specific charity or idea
they would like to contribute to, the RACF
offers “Forever Funds”. These funds are
unrestricted in use and are part of their
competitive grant-making process. This
is different from donor-advised funds (the
donor directs where their money goes each
year) and designated funds (funds that give
to specific charities).
Since unrestricted, the money in these
funds goes towards the current needs of
the community and towards the two main
goals of the RACF: to create an equitable
community and strengthen the region’s
vitality.
Equitable community goals focus on raising
awareness of poverty and how it affects our
community economic development efforts,
the academic achievement gap, and fostering
racial and ethnic equality. This is what
drove the RACF’s work in addressing the
issue of poverty that is heavily concentrated
in the city of Rochester, helped establish a
universal Pre-K, and drives other programs
like Dialogues Without Borders and the
RACE: Are We Really So Different? exhibit.
Strengthening our region’s vitality focuses
on diverse cultural offerings, improving
the capacity of local arts organizations,
preserving the region’s rich historical assets,
and creating more successful age-friendly
communities. The RACF hopes to ultimately
promote systemic change and sustainable
impact within the Rochester community.
With donor intent being the most important
aspect of the foundation, donor education is
a close second. Therefore, donor education
events are integral to their initiatives. Such
events include “Joe U” breakfasts—inspired
by their founder Joe Posner, who was
famous for holding breakfast meetings as an
opportunity to inform others of his current
charitable endeavors. According to Miller,
the goal is for these events to be peer-led,
“You have a donor who is talking about [a
particular charity] to other donors, so at
that point it’s more credible than a charity
talking about themselves to other donors.”
Maintaining the Funds
The RACF‘s purpose is to maintain donor
funds prudently for growth and donate the
income through their investment structure.
According to Miller, their investment
structure started at 70% equity and 30%
fixed income since 1972. However, just
last year they changed their strategy to
70% equity, 20% fixed income, and 10%
alternatives. The performance of their longterm strategy has been 9.6% return over a
22-year-period.
As a foundation, they are required to
distribute at least 5% of their corpus a year.
In addition, the RACF charges a 1% fee
on all of their funds for operational costs.
Any return past the mandatory 5% and
1% operations fee, gets reinvested. “The
... We tend to talk to people here about philanthropy and the first thing
everyone says is, ‘Well no, I’m not a philanthropist. Tom Golisano is a
philanthropist, Bill Gates is a philanthropist, I’m not a philanthropist,’ but you
actually are...”
20 | SPRING 2015