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Dufferin Community Foundation presents to Mono Council

September 8, 2020   ·   0 Comments

By Peter Richardson

The most recent Mono Council meeting, held in a virtual format on Aug. 18, started off with an update on the Dufferin Community Foundation, presented by it’s president, Gord Gallaugher. 

The DCF, was incorporated in late 2018 to provide support for eligible charities, primarily in Dufferin County. The Foundation builds permanently invested (endowed) funds, from donor gifts and provides grants to these charities annually. It is place-based, meaning the members all live and work in Dufferin County. The Board are all volunteers from the community, community leaders with a wide range of skills and backgrounds. 

The Foundation supports a variety of charities, from which donors can choose who their money goes towards, or they may create their own fund for designated charitable purposes. It provides tax efficient opportunities for estate planning. Donors are offered an administratively simple cost effective alternative to creating a private or family foundation and the charities find a ready made solution to manage perpetually invested funds.

In Ontario, municipalities are considered to be a charity, in fact all governments are as they can give out charitable receipts. Consequently, the DCF could also manage certain assets, such as endowments for a community. By allowing this, the municipality could potentially receive more or greater capital gifts as they would be kept at arms length from the day to day municipal expenditures, thus things such as museums, libraries, or recreation could be funded through the foundation. 

To date, the DCF has sponsored $10,500 in sponsored grants, in three years and created their first donor advised fund, for the Greenwood family. This being a fund to reduce poverty and run youth programs. 

By the end of 2020 there will be two new funds, Environment and Arts and Culture, in addition to the Visions fund.

 Through funds received from the RBC Future Launch Community Challenge, $15,000 was recently granted to DCAFS and Youthdale Riding. Utilizing the Federal Government Investment Readiness Program, a $50 million effort to help social organizations build capacity, monies have also been given to Streams Hub Shelburne, Alton Millpond Association and the Dufferin Board of Trade Biz Hub. A further $112,750 was distributed to 13 charities through the federal government’s Emergency Community Support Fund. DCF created their own Dufferin Emergency Support Fund and has given $3,000 to the Food Bak and the Hospital. They have raised $9,000 and hope to reach $20,000 by year’s end.

Currently, the Foundation has some $500,000 invested with a goal of reaching $10 million within ten years, which will allow close to $400,000 to be granted to charities annually.

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