SMSF is committed to growing the Endowment Fund balance to $2 million as quickly as possible with large unrestricted gifts. The form of gifts can vary significantly. We not only accept cash, but we also encourage gifts of appreciated securities as a means of stretching your contribution farther through tax savings. We also encourage the gift of harder-to-value assets such as real estate, life estates and life insurance. We are committed to working with you to explain the benefits of such gifts.
We are requesting that donors consider gifts of at least $50,000 to be funded over no more than three years. Each gift of this amount or greater will be, if desired, titled in the name of the donor or the donor's family.
Finally, while we are seeking large gifts of unrestricted funds, the Foundation will accept all donations that are committed to the permanent endowment of the Foundation. The San Marino Schools Foundation has also designated the "SMHS Alumni Reunion Endowment Fund." Any donations made that are designated as a Reunion Gift shall be added to this fund. Further, any class can also designate a specific year once the donations aggregate at least $10,000. As an example of this, the Class of 2008 has already achieved this designation.
The San Marino Schools Foundation has hired the California Community Foundation to direct the investment of our Endowment Fund. The California Community Foundation was formed in 1915, as a public charity under Section 501 c (3) of the Internal Revenue Code, and manages more than $600 million in assets for a broad range of charitable organizations. As a nonprofit organization, the California Community Foundation seeks to provide high quality management with a focus on providing consistent, long-term returns to its constituents.
The benefits of teaming with the California Community Foundation are significant. The San Marino Schools Foundation will be able to have a broad range of high quality managers overseeing our Endowment Fund. The California Community Foundation monitors the performance of the managers of their funds, with the objective of making changes when appropriate. The costs associated with the supervision and oversight of the funds is spread over the large asset base. This makes the aggregate costs associated with managing our funds very competitive.
Because of their extensive role with many other charities based in Southern California, the California Community Foundation is well-suited to assist us to structure more sophisticated Planned Gifts should they be appropriate for a particular family. These additional gifts to our Endowment Fund can include charitable bequests, charitable remainder, charitable remainder trusts, and charitable gift annuities. You can learn more about the California Community Foundation at www.calfund.org
The Endowment Fund can provide a consistent supplemental source of funds for the San Marino Unified School District - one of the finest, if not finest, public school systems in the State of California.
Endowment
[read more]
The objective of the Endowment Fund is to raise unrestricted, permanent funds which will be held in perpetuity and invested in a manner that strives to provide acceptable long-term total returns and to protect the principal from inflation. As such the investment income will be a stable and growing source of income to support the continued excellence of the public school system in San Marino.
The current financial crisis for the State of California is likely to put additional budgetary constraints on our school system. This is the most recent of many budgetary crises resulting from our dependence on the State of California's tax revenues. The shortfall between revenues from the state to support our schools and the budget for our schools in the San Marino Unified School District has grown erratically over the business cycle of the nation and our state. In recent years, the funds required to maintain the excellence in our schools has been over $1,000 per student more than the funds provided through the State of California and local taxes. As this annual shortfall grows, the San Marino Unified School District will need to find additional permanent and stable sources of funds in order to maintain or improve the quality of our public school system.
