

I just started my own charitable fund - drelihan

A few days ago, a friend told me about donor advised funds. The best way to describe them, at least for me, is something like having your own personal charitable foundation, but without the overhead ( * there are significant legal and operational differences between a donor assisted fund and a charitable foundation, but I won't go into that here ).<p>The process went like this: I set up a fund thru the Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program and mailed in a check for $25,000 ( minimum amount to open a fund. ) to start things off. This money no longer belongs to me, but I can recommend grants to public charities as well as direct how the money should be invested while it is waiting to be distributed as a grant. I put half of my fund in short term/cash investments so money will be there for grants I want to make in the short-term and the other half in a stock fund to hopefully appreciate over the course of years, so my giving a decade from now can benefit.<p>Rather than writing checks to different charities throughout the year, tracking each contribution, and hoping the charity sends me a letter confirming I donated, I make one donation at the end of each year directly to my fund. Going forward, I can make all my grants to public charity through my fund online. On my federal return, I only have to specify the single donation to my fund without having to worry about collecting proof of donations from all the individual charities to which I contribute.<p>I'm really excited about this and I am looking forward to figuring out where my fund could do the most good. I do not have a specific focus of where I want to contribute. I have a few charities I have supported over the years, but I would really like to expand and find some charities encouraging technical education to under-privileged youth. I would particularly like organizations where a small grant $100-$1000 goes a long way. Any thoughts Hacker News?
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styts
Thinking of your cause, these two organisations come to mind:
<http://pystar.org/> and <http://www.blackgirlscode.com/> I'm sure there are
many others like these, though.

