Agenda - 10-09-2012 - 1 - Laserfiche WebLink

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2 The notion of a Community Giving Fund evolved through a process that involved the County Attorney and Financial Services Director as well as the County Manager and interested Department Directors. The steps of this process to date have included the following: • A survey of Department Directors in January 2012 to gather information about whether and if so how different departments now receive donations from the public (see attached results). • A review of the survey results at the February 2012 monthly meeting of Department Directors with the County Manager. • A meeting of two Department Directors on May 3, 2012 with the Director of Development and Community Partnerships with the Triangle Community Foundation (TCF) to discuss the possibility of a community fund partnership. • A meeting on May 31, 2012 with the County Manager, Assistant County Managers, County Attorney, and interested and/or involved department directors to identify concerns and next steps in light of the discussion with TCF. • A meeting of two Assistant County Managers (one being the County's Chief Financial Officer), the County Attorney and two department directors on June 22, 2012 with TCF's Legal & Policy Advisor/Director of Planned Giving and Director of Development and Community Partnerships. • A meeting of several Department Directors and one Assistant County Manager on July 11, 2012 with the Executive Director of the Chapel Hill/Carrboro Public School Foundation. Initially, a driving issue was whether Orange County should create its own foundation or partner with an existing foundation to create a community fund. As the process unfolded, staff became unanimous in their opinion that a partnership with a well-administered foundation such as the Triangle Community Foundation is the preferred approach. The primary reason for this preference is that the framework for receiving, acknowledging and investing donations is already in place. Also, costs related to staffing and governance would be held to a minimum by this approach. One concern was whether the Community Giving Fund could be identified effectively as a homegrown pursuit if it was created through a foundation partnership. However, staff has become confident that this concern can be addressed and resolved by partnering with an interested and flexible foundation. In the case of TCF, for instance, there was agreement among staff that the Community Giving Fund could not only have a Hillsborough address, but also be wholly identified and branded as an Orange County pursuit. In other words, there is no need to identify an Orange County giving fund as a TCF fund or pursuit. As the preceding comments suggest, involved County staff have come to consider TCF as a strong fit for the development of this fund. Currently, the foundation has no local government partnerships of this kind, but is very interested in developing in this direction Another reason TCF appears to be a very good fit is that it has its own real estate foundation. As a result, TCF is capable of receiving property, appraising property value, and liquidating property. Moreover, the foundation already does outreach to the estate planning community and it is capable of doing so in a unified way for Orange County. This would entail notifying estate planners that Orange County residents may designate part of their estate through the Community Giving Fund and specify the use to which the gift will be directed.