Why Give Through Us

Community foundations are designed and driven to move donations into the communities they serve, while financial institutions ultimately exist to make a profit for shareholders. Here are additional reasons why you should leverage the offerings of our community foundation to fulfill your philanthropic goals.

Fees

Our fees are modest and are essential to both cover the extensive services we offer and enable us to carry out our charitable mission. Financial institutions are sometimes able to offer lower fees for donor advised funds but the revenues go to support the business rather than broader community needs.

Our 850+ fundholders tend to see choosing a community foundation to support their fund, as a purposeful extension of their giving, and see their fees as another form of donation. As a charity, our fees are what allow us to exist, and excel. They enable us to pay for critical research on the inequality in Toronto and offer opportunities for our fundholders to learn as a community through learning journeys.

Our fees allow us to fulfill our charitable mandate, to engage very broadly with the community, and bring all that knowledge and engagement to bare for our fundholders, while also giving a platform to lesser known charities.

Community Insights, Connections and Commitment

At Toronto Foundation we continuously work to build and maintain relationships with the smaller organizations that are serving our city’s neighbourhoods and communities and working to address inequalities in this city. By creating connections with these organizations, fundholders have opportunities to better understand the city’s inequalities, the important work of nonprofit and grassroots groups, and to diversify their giving to these nimble organizations.

Click here to see a comparison chart of a giving through a community foundation versus a financial institution. 

Essentially a community foundation offers all the benefits of private foundation without the hassles. The biggest advantage is that we can get you established in as little as a few days compared to the typical six to twelve months it takes to get all the paperwork sorted for a private foundation.  After that, we offer the advantage of full-service administration so that you don’t have to hire staff to run the office.

Investment Management 

We’re proud of our investment strategy and priorities. As of January 2021 RockCreek is Toronto Foundation’s outsourced chief investment officer. Responsible for the Foundation’s main pool investments, RockCreek brings a wealth of experience as a leading global investment management firm with a solid track record in responsible and sustainable investing. 

Working with RockCreek our aim is to maximize financial returns while also supporting social and environmental aims.

Click here to see a comparison chart of a giving through a community foundation versus a private foundation. 

Endowments are what allow community foundations to exist over the long-term and be ready to support their communities when crises arise. Although we are obligated to grant 3.5% of our assets annually, together with fundholders we disbursed 16% of our eligible assets in 2020.

This is because of Toronto Foundation’s unique flexible fund model that marries permanent investments with flow through granting.

Permanent endowments are the backbone of community foundations. They enable us to embrace issues and advance change over the long-term.

Fund fees provide operating dollars so that staff can do the work to track pertinent research and curate it for donors. Those fees also enable our community engagement team to build relationships with smaller and nimble organizations closest to the most pressing issues our city is facing. Our fundholder engagement team works to define your philanthropic strategy and facilitate your granting.