At the community foundation, we are honored to work with generous individuals and families like so many of you who’ve established, or contribute to, funds to support the causes you care about and the needs of our community both now and in the future. We’re also inspired by those of you who are getting to know the community foundation and considering establishing a donor-advised or other type of fund.

Wherever you are in the stages of your philanthropic planning, the team at the community foundation is here for you and considers our relationship to be personal. That’s why we welcome the opportunity to meet with our fund holders and prospective fund holders. Here are a few insights into what those meetings are all about.

You can expect personal, dedicated service. Unlike financial institutions’ donor-advised fund platforms where access to a dedicated donor services team can be rare, the staff at the local community foundation is here to help you every step of the way along your charitable giving journey. Our team is happy to meet with you one-on-one, and we are also happy to join a meeting with you and your legal, tax, or financial advisor to assess your current situation and determine the best charitable tax strategy for you. This includes evaluating the best assets to give to your fund or funds at the community foundation, including publicly-traded stock and even other noncash assets such as real estate or closely-held stock.

We care about your intentions for your fund. The team at the community foundation wants to understand the areas of interest that are a priority for you, whether that’s the arts, health care, social services, the environment, education, community development, or something else. We also want to understand the role you envision for the successor advisors you’ve named in the fund documentation, such as your children, who will make decisions about the fund when you are no longer living or able to manage the fund yourself.

We will help you establish additional funds to meet your goals. Sometimes when the team at the community foundation is working with a fund holder to understand the intentions for a donor-advised fund, we discover that it’s worth adding one or more additional funds to complement the donor-advised fund structure already in place. For example, some fund holders decide to also establish a designated fund for a particular nonprofit organization or an unrestricted fund to support the community foundation’s mission in perpetuity. Many times, fund holders decide to make recurring contributions over time to multiple funds at the community foundation to achieve their various philanthropy goals.

We make the paperwork a breeze. As you know if you’ve already established a fund at the community foundation, the paperwork is straightforward and not at all cumbersome. As we’re exploring updating your existing fund, setting up a new fund, or adding additional types of funds to your portfolio, we’ll prepare simple documentation to capture your wishes, collect important contact information, and address your vision for your fund or funds both during and after your lifetime.

We’re always here to strategize about your giving options. As you periodically review your assets and financial situation with your advisors, keep an eye out for appreciated assets that could be ideal to give to your fund or funds at the community foundation because of the potential capital gains tax savings. The community foundation can work with you and your advisors on contributions of a wide variety of assets to help you achieve your tax and estate planning goals. We are happy to go over the appraisal and documentation requirements for gifts of nonmarketable assets such as closely-held stock and real estate.

We’ll let you know about educational opportunities and gatherings with other fund holders. During our meeting, we’ll share a calendar of upcoming events and ways you can learn more about the causes you care about and what’s going on in the community overall. Our team is here to help you stay up-to-date on the various ways you can support the community by working with the community foundation and partnering with other fund holders.

Thank you for your commitment to philanthropy! If you’re already a fund holder, we are grateful that you’ve made the choice to organize your giving by working with the community foundation. If you’re considering getting started, we look forward to continuing the conversation! In either case, we look forward to seeing you soon!

Money, mortality, and family relationships. Each of those topics alone can be tough for anyone to address head on, and when you combine them, it’s no wonder so many people put off setting up or updating their estate plans. Establishing a will, trust, and beneficiary designations forces a person to confront decisions about the ultimate division of their assets, and many people think estate planning is more expensive or more of a hassle than it really is.

Helping your clients get their affairs in order–well before they need to due to age or illness–is truly a gift to them and their heirs. It’s extremely stressful for surviving spouses, children, and other loved ones to be faced with the emotional stress and workload of financial disorganization and uncertainty, on top of dealing with grief. Updating estate plans also allows clients to make arrangements for gifts upon their death to their favorite charities.

Many people choose to support their favorite charities in an estate plan through a beneficiary designation. As you work with your clients, be sure to review the beneficiary designations on insurance policies and retirement plans. Pay close attention to tax-deferred retirement plans such as 401(k)s and IRAs. Typically, individuals will name their spouse as the primary beneficiary of these accounts to provide income following your death and to comply with legal requirements. But as you and your clients evaluate whom to name as a secondary beneficiary of these tax-deferred accounts, don’t automatically default to naming the children or a revocable trust. You and your clients may determine that naming a charity, such as a fund at the community foundation, is by far the most tax-efficient, streamlined way to make gifts to your favorite causes upon your death and establish a philanthropic legacy. A bequest like this avoids not only estate tax, but also income tax on the retirement plan distributions.

Please reach out to the team at the community foundation as you work with your clients on their estate plans. We can:

–Review the many tax benefits of naming a fund established by your clients at the community foundation as a beneficiary of their IRA or other tax-deferred retirement account

–Provide bequest language for your clients’ wills or trusts, properly describing their fund using the correct legal terms

–Provide language for a beneficiary designation, again properly describing your clients’ funds using the correct legal terms

–Work with you and your clients to update the terms of their donor-advised fund so that their wishes are carried out following their death, whether that is naming specific charities to receive distributions or naming children as successor advisors to the fund

We’ve all heard stories about the sad consequences of someone not having an estate plan, or even having out-of-date beneficiary designations. Estate planning documents, including wills, trusts, and beneficiary designations, often turn out to represent generous acts of clear distribution and conflict avoidance. An estate plan allows your clients to demonstrate how much they care about the people in their lives as well as their charitable passions.

Simplicity, efficiency, and effectiveness have long been cornerstones of working with the community foundation to carry out charitable goals. Time and time again at the community foundation, we see how easily donors who’ve established a donor-advised or other type of fund are able to not only fulfill their big-picture charitable goals, but to act quickly to respond to critical needs in the community as they occur..

Indeed, the flexibility of working with the community foundation allows you to support the causes you love at a financial level that meets your charitable giving budget. Early in the year, many of our fund holders transfer highly-appreciated stock to their donor-advised fund, for example, at the community foundation so that they are prepared to activate their annual giving right away.

At every level of giving, philanthropy is a catalyst for improving quality of life. Indeed, anyone with a willingness to give can be a philanthropist. Whether you’re using your donor-advised fund to give $250 to a college or university, $2500 to a food bank, or $25,000 to an art museum’s endowment, you’re making a difference.

Consider that small donations from a large number of people can make a huge difference. This is especially true for responses to disasters and humanitarian tragedies. On the other end of the spectrum, very large donations to an organization can transform its ability to scale and serve a much greater population.

In so many ways, whether gifts are large or small or somewhere in between, philanthropy creates the margin of excellence that helps communities, families, and individuals thrive. The team at the community foundation is here to help you achieve satisfaction and impact with your giving at any level.

The Hardy County Community Foundation is pleased to welcome the addition of the Vernon and Myrtle Webster Scholarship Fund.

Myrtle Webster established the Vernon Webster Scholarship shortly after Vernon’s death in 1980. After the death of Myrtle in 2009, their three children, Vernon, Buddy, and Annabelle, added to it and changed the name to the Vernon and Myrtle Webster Scholarship.  The scholarship has been administered by the Hardy County Board of Education, but was recently transferred to the Hardy County Community Foundation where it will continue to honor the legacy of two exceptional individuals who valued and supported education.

Vernon Webster was born in 1910 near Wardensville, WV, the oldest of three sons whose father died when he was twelve years old. Myrtle (Shockey) Webster was born in 1917 near Moorefield, into a family of 8 brothers and sisters.

Vernon operated a saw mill for a while then drove a truck for Rockingham Poultry for several years while Myrtle owned and managed a restaurant in the 1950’s. They eventually decided to open a television, appliance, and furniture store known as VW Webster Furniture and Appliances until they retired. Myrtle clerked the store and Webster did the deliveries and television and appliance repair. They were members of Duffy Memorial United Methodist Church in Moorefield. Vernon was a long-time member of the Moorefield Lions Club and served on the Moorefield Town Council.

Both Vernon and Myrtle had only eighth-grade educations, and while they still achieved great success as a result of their initiative, perseverance, and hard work, they always saw the value of a good education. They staunchly supported funding initiatives for the local school system and were strong supporters of higher education. Nearly all their descendants and their spouses have acquired or are pursuing college degrees.

The Webster’s interest in supporting education grew out of attending their children’s sporting events at Moorefield High School.  Vernon and Buddy were active in three sports and Annabelle was a cheerleader.

Myrtle had a great love of high school basketball and attended games into her late 80’s. Over the decades she watched her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren play. She also grew to know many of the other players and their parents.

As Myrtle watched the students play, she took an interest in their futures and always enjoyed hearing about them becoming successful adults and reaching their full potential. She wanted to help others further their education and believed in rewarding academic excellence and community involvement. A scholarship seemed like a great way to achieve both. Vernon and Myrtle’s commitment to education has benefitted Moorefield High School seniors for over 40 years, and will continue to do so another 40 years and beyond.

The Hardy County Community Foundation is currently accepting applications for scholarships, including the Vernon and Myrtle Webster Scholarship, now through 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday, February 28th for the 2024-25 school year. Moorefield and East Hardy high school seniors scheduled to graduate this spring are invited to apply using an online application which may accessed online at: https://ewvcf.awardspring.com