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About Us

The Greater Kansas City Community Foundation has helped hundreds of area businesses further their philanthropic goals. It can do the same for you by helping you establish your own corporate foundation or supporting the expansion of your current corporate giving program. The Community Foundation provides the most comprehensive offering of expertise, products and services in the marketplace today, resulting in a better way to give to the causes you care about.

Corporate Benefits

A corporate giving program impacts a company's bottom line and its presence in the marketplace. Simply put, companies that give back are companies that move forward.

Studies prove that a company's ties to a community cause return benefits not only to the communities where customers and employees live and work but also to the company itself.

The Facts

• 79% of consumers said they would switch brands or retailers based on associations with a good cause, when price and quality are equal.¹
• 85% of Americans say that they have a more positive image of a product or company when it supports a cause they care about.¹

¹ Cone, Inc. "Past. Present. Future. The 25th Anniversary of Cause Marketing Research Study." Cone Cause Evolution Study (2008): Page 10.

Choosing to work with the Community Foundation, a national leader in providing corporate giving services, provides greater efficiencies. The Community Foundation's services empower a business to consolidate internal resources to reduce overhead and save money.

• Maximize a company's giving potential.
• Provide opportunities for stronger, more focused brand-building among customers, employees and the community.
• Promote healthier, more livable and economically viable communities.

Corporate giving doesn't just create more loyal customers. It also makes employees feel good. Every day, the Community Foundation helps companies and their employees make a positive impact in Kansas City and throughout the world. The benefits are plenty when you establish or build on a corporate giving program with the Community Foundation. Take action today!

Products & Services

The Community Foundation helps everyone from family businesses to Fortune 500 companies through its comprehensive offering of products and services backed by the dedicated administrative support every company needs to maximize its resources and overall giving effort.

Choose from our many customized services. Whatever the selection, you'll rest easy knowing you have cost-effective choices, corporate giving expertise and a behind-the-scenes team to help you.

Products

From establishing a foundation to maintaining day-to-day giving activities, the Community Foundation's products and services offer everything you need to make your current dollars work smarter and harder, helping you reach your philanthropic goals.

Corporate Foundation

The Community Foundation offers a wide variety of giving solutions that support and organize corporate giving. Establishing your own corporate foundation is an easy solution for implementing a wide range of corporate giving options that make a difference in the community, rally your employees, foster a loyal customer base and help you reach your corporate goals.

Establishing a corporate foundation allows you to maximize the tax and budget aspects of your company's giving.

• A corporate foundation can help ensure your charitable investments provide the greatest emotional, civic and financial benefit possible.
• A corporate foundation also increases the visibility of your company's charitable strategies in the community.
• Organizing your giving through a foundation means you no longer have to worry about the paperwork, leaving more time to focus on what's really important.
• The Community Foundation encourages your company to use its own financial advisor to manage its charitable dollars, or you may select from one or more of the Foundation's investment pools.

Customized Giving Cards

Giving Cards are similar to retail gift cards but are redeemed to benefit any 501(c)(3) public charity. A company can purchase customized Giving Cards displaying the company's logo on the front of the cards and give the Giving Cards to employees, clients or referral sources for any occasion. The Giving Card is a powerful and inexpensive way to associate your corporate brand with social responsibility in the eyes of employees, clients and the public.

• The person receiving the Giving Card goes to www.gkccf.org to redeem the card to benefit the charity of his or her choice anywhere in the country.
• The entire Giving Card purchase price is tax deductible.

Employee Matching Gift Fund

An employee matching gift fund administers corporate matching gifts. A company has the flexibility to enhance employees' contributions and/or volunteer time.

• An employee matching gift fund encourages charitable giving and demonstrates appreciation for employees' commitment.
• The Community Foundation handles the details, including processing checks and verifying grant recipient charitable status, so the company and its employees continue to shine.

Disaster Relief Fund

When unfortunate disaster strikes locally or internationally, a disaster relief fund is an immediate way for your company to demonstrate that it cares. The relief fund package comes with full capacity for online donations.

The Community Foundation handles all of the details, from processing the donations to providing a safe and secure platform for online giving, all behind-the-scenes so that you and your employees receive the credit you deserve.

Corporate Scholarship Fund

One simple document is all it takes to establish a way for your company, employees and customers to support worthy students' educational pursuits.

The Community Foundation handles the paperwork necessary to ensure that scholarships and grants are distributed according to tax rules and regulations.

Executive Donor Advised Fund

A donor advised fund is a personal charitable fund that can be opened with a gift of cash, stock, real estate, life insurance or almost any hard-to-value asset. An increasing number of companies are offering donor advised funds to encourage executive level employees to support the causes they care about.

• Encouraging your executives to establish donor advised funds and making it easy for them to do so is a strategy and service that helps your company attract and retain top senior management talent.
• An executive can grant from the fund or add to the fund at any time. Grants can be made to any 501(c)(3) organization, including churches, synagogues or schools.
• As an even greater incentive for executives, some companies elect to pay the administrative fee for a certain period of time.

Services

The Community Foundation team specializes in providing customized grant service administration to assist your company in managing all of its charitable activities. The best-of-class, behind-the-scenes services are designed to allow your company to remain focused on its core operations and increase the recognition your company deserves for its charitable giving activities and programs.

Corporate Giving Inventory

Aligning your business mission and philanthropic activity starts with a corporate giving inventory.

• In just a few short interviews, our team can gather all of the information it needs to prepare a comprehensive inventory that addresses all areas of your company's corporate giving and community activities: giving practices; internal structures and processes for grantmaking; guidelines for making decisions; roles of clients, staff and management in making decisions; methods of measurement; types of giving, including grants, sponsorships, events and scholarships; volunteerism, including executive board service and employee volunteer hours; in-kind contributions; employee giving and matching gifts; corporate giving campaigns; historical giving; systems for tracking donations; and amounts of giving based on employee and customer requests versus corporate mission.
• The inventory service includes a brief survey of your employees to ensure the company achieves its vision for community impact.
• The inventory service embraces a business bottom-line measurement system and a simple method for evaluating annual giving.
• Getting organized creates opportunities for a company to save money and re-energize its commitment to social responsibility.

Grantmaking

Through a grantmaking process customized for your company, the Community Foundation will provide a wide range of services and ensure that your grant dollars are being used for their intended purpose with maximum impact in the community. Our services relieve your company of the administrative burden. Our behind-the-scenes team is available to:

• Field phone calls and correspondence from grant seekers.
• Identify qualified and appropriate applicants.
• Receive and review all grant requests.
• Make site visits to examine program concept or agency capabilities.
• Maintain a database of all grant requests, grant awards and status.
• Determine if a gift will qualify as a charitable contribution.
• Assist grantees in developing and refining grant requests.
• Prepare written grant recommendations.
• Prepare and send award letters (including formal terms and conditions agreement, payment schedule, and reporting procedures) and, if the company so chooses, notify those whose proposals are denied.
• Process and verify grant payments.
• Oversee grantee accountability.
• Process incoming gifts and pay grantees.
• Create an online donation page with credit card donation capabilities.
• Offer management of the competitive grant process.
• Provide account access 24-hours a day, seven days a week.

Employee Matching Gift Program

Whether the corporate match is $100 a year or $1,000, and whether the match extends to all employees or just the executive team, the Community Foundation can administer a customized program for you. By affirming employees' own commitments to the causes they care about, the company demonstrates its commitment to the employees. The Community Foundation works directly with your team to streamline the process, saving you time and money.

Scholarship Administration

The Community Foundation can make administering a scholarship even easier. Let us take care of issuing award and denial letters to applicants and serving as the behind-the-scenes selection committee, making decisions based on your criteria.

Giving Strategy Development

Based on what is important to you, the Community Foundation team highlights community issues and helps you formulate strategies to respond to these needs.

Corporate Giving Campaign

The Community Foundation offers a comprehensive array of systems and processes to support your giving campaign.

Cause Marketing Campaign

Working with your team, Community Foundation staff can help you implement a cause marketing campaign, ensuring that it aligns with your corporate giving approach and business objectives.