Community News - June 2019
Resources for community foundations & designated funds
|
|
Greetings!
Welcome to the Summer Edition of SMIF Community News, where we share resources with our affiliate funds. We have a new community foundation to welcome to our team. Please help me welcome Houston Area Community Foundation!
With event season wrapping up I wanted to let you know about a few new opportunities coming up from SMIF. Also, SMIF’s fiscal year ends on June 30. Please send in any lingering donations you may have!
Thank you for those who were able to attend our Sprout! events last month. I hope you were able to learn more about the plethora of resources SMIF is able to offer. For those who were not able to attend, SMIF launched our
Love Where You Live campaign to raise dollars and broaden our impact throughout the region. Check out
this video for more information and to see why people love living in southern Minnesota!
Remember we are here to help. Do not hesitate to reach out if you have any questions. Enjoy your summer and I hope to see you at the next Affiliate Fund Training in August! Details coming soon.
Community Philanthropy Director
507-214-7023
|
|
It’s that time of year again! Please make sure to send in an updated board roster if you have not done so already. It is SMIF’s policy to hold all disbursements until we have an updated roster for the new fiscal year. Please make sure to submit yours, including names, phone numbers, addresses and emails by July 1.
|
|
New Affiliate Fund Fee Structure
|
|
SMIF’s board of trustees has adopted a new fee structure for all affiliate funds. This will be phased in over the next few months. Currently, SMIF does not charge an administrative fee for community foundations. Though you do have a passthrough investment fee of 0.72% from our financial advisors. This will not change.
Starting July 1, any new fund under SMIF’s umbrella, including those that will be housed under a community foundation, will receive an administrative fee of 1% or a minimum of $250 annually. If the fund is endowed, the fee will be 0.72% investment fee and 0.50% administrative fee.
Starting January 1, 2020, all funds except community foundations will be charged a fee as outlined above. This includes funds that are currently under a community foundation umbrella excluding the general and general endowment funds.
The fee structure for the affiliate fund program is changing to allow SMIF to continue to support small communities in capturing their philanthropic dollars. In fact, each community foundation receives at least $5,000 in services each year. By adding fees to some fund types, we can continue to offer services to our community foundations without charge. The new fees are minimal in comparison to other organizations. Please feel free to reach out with any concerns.
|
|
New Community Foundation Matches
|
|
Fiscal Year 20 Matches
Endowment Match
for community foundations with endowments under $100,000: $20,000 remaining
|
|
Did you know SMIF is a donor supported organization? We can offer these matches and support your fund with technical and administrative assistance because donors see the value in the services we provide to our communities. We believe in equipping and empowering communities to make change at home. If you share this passion as well, I hope you will consider making a personal contribution to SMIF to help us continue this essential program focused on keeping our communities vital.
|
|
Annual Planned Giving Print Opportunity for Community Foundations
|
|
Each year SMIF prints one professionally printed planned giving piece for our community foundations. This year, we have two options for you to select from! First, is this
brochure
. We will of course include your logo and contact information. This is a great piece to help your community members start to think about their final plans, which should begin as early as your 40s!
The second option is a
postcard
. This is one developed for Harmony Area Community Foundation. For this to work, we need a quote from a local community member about the importance of the community foundation similar in length to that on the example. We would also need two local pictures that are high resolution.
SMIF will design and print up to 250 of one of the above options for each community foundation.
The deadline to participate is Monday, June 17.
|
|
Tips for successful Facebook Posts
|
|
Social media is a great way to connect with people in your community. It is important to post often (once a week would be great!) and include eye-catching content. The more likes, reactions, shares, and comments the better. Below are some ideas for Facebook posts.
- Promote your events! Facebook is a great way to get people excited about the events you have coming up.
- Promote events in your community - share your chamber's posts or other local organizations.
- Share SMIF's posts related to your community and other community foundations.
- Link to SMIF's press releases and blog posts that relate to your community.
- Example: "Our school was selected to receive SMIF's Literacy Grant and will be awarded hundreds of books! Read the full story on their website! smifoundation.org/literacygrant.
- TIP: You can paste a link to a Facebook post and it will fetch a preview of the webpage. Then, you can delete the link and the webpage will still be connected to the post so people can go to the website. This allows you to link to a webpage but avoid including long URLs in the post's text. You can also use a link shortener like bit.ly
- Share Tim Penny's Op/Eds which SMIF posts to Facebook and they are on our website.
- Highlight one way to give to your foundation such as donor-advised funds or farmland retention.
- Example: "Did you know we accept gifts of farmland? We retain the gifted land as an asset, allowing it to continue to be farmed. And your land provides a lasting legacy for the community and region. Learn more about how you can help preserve one of the greatest natural assets of southern Minnesota at smifoundation.org/farmland."
- Share relevant articles about community foundations and rural MN from reliable sources.
- Example: "The Center for Rural Policy and Development recently released their report "The State of Rural Minnesota" for 2019. Read more at https://www.ruralmn.org/the-state-of-rural-2019/"
- Share posts from other community foundations and celebrate each other's successes!
If you have any questions about posting to Facebook or other social media platforms, feel free to reach out to Grace McClintock, Communications & Development Coordinator at
gracem@smifoundation.org
. We will plan on sharing a few examples of posts in each newsletter edition for you to use.
|
|
Community Foundation Websites Update
|
|
As you know, we offer community foundations a marketing package that includes a new website. We have decided to make some changes in the website creation and update process to improve efficiency. We are utilizing Microsoft Forms and Dropbox to gather content for websites rather than emailing.
If you are creating a new site, we will send you a link to the "Website
Creation
Form" to fill out the necessary content and then share a Dropbox folder with your primary contact to upload photos and documents for the site. We will then send you the link to view your site and the link to the "Website
Update
Form" to make any initial changes or edits. We will then connect a custom domain to your site and it will be live!
For those of you who already have a website,
click here
to access the "Website Update Form" for you to complete with any content changes. We will then share a Dropbox folder with your primary contact to upload photos and documents for the site.
Please allow 1-2 months for these updates to be complete.
We hope these updates will make the website process easier on everyone!
|
|
Community Foundation Spotlights
|
|
Montgomery Community Foundation
My birthday was approaching and Facebook prompts you to use a fundraiser to celebrate and benefit a local organization. I thought this would be a great way to continue the fundraising efforts for the Montgomery Community Foundation. I was able to link to SMIF’s Facebook donation page and they transferred the dollars to the Montgomery Community Foundation! As a result, I raised $650 for MCF from 15 donors. Twelve of those were new donors! –
Liz Krocak, Montgomery Community Foundation Board Member
|
|
Wabasha-Kellogg Area Community Foundation
Our Legacy Club (members donate $1,000/year) had to be slowly developed. We had to become embedded in the community and become known for doing good things. Once people know the Foundation is positively and consistently helping, we were able to bring up our Legacy Club and make it feel like a good way for them to support their community. A great way to give back. The charitable dollars are there. We need to convince the givers that our Foundation is the best place for their philanthropy. We have had a good start, but we will hope to grow this group a minimum of 10%/ year. So far so good!
– Dr. Bob Mann, Wabasha-Kellogg Area Community Foundation President
|
|
Recent Community Foundation Grants
|
|
- Community education & speaker series – Lanesboro Community Foundation
- Arts installation & programming – Lanesboro Community Foundation, Wings
- Reading programs – Spring Valley Area Community Foundation, Maple River AAA
- School programming equipment, resources and upgrades – Maple River AAA
- Park and community space upgrades – Spring Valley Area Community Foundation, Lanesboro Area Community Foundation, Harmony Area Community Foundation
- Community celebrations – Rushford Community Foundation, Spring Valley Area Community Foundation, Harmony Area Community Foundation
- Mural restoration – Montgomery Community Foundation
|
|
Support Southern Minnesota's Future
|
|
Imagine vibrant communities where entrepreneurs launch and grow their businesses, children are prepared for their future and communities build the resources and networks needed to sustain their quality of life.
SMIF is embarking on a three-year
Love Where You Live
campaign to strengthen our region’s future. Won’t you join us in creating vibrant communities where more than 581,000 people call home?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
