2-22-25 - Heather Cash Community Foundation of Louisville

2-22-25 - Heather Cash Community Foundation of Louisville.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the Chamber Connection on Talk Radio ten eighty,
a program designed for small business owners, aspiring entrepreneurs, and
community members who are eager to learn more about the
intricacies of running a successful business, hosted each week by
the dedicated staff of the Chamber of Saint Matthews. Now
here's your host for this week, Virginia Heart COO.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Good afternoon, Good afternoon, and welcome to the Chamber Connection.
Like it said, I am Virginia Heart, your host for today.
Today in the studio, we have Heather Cash with us.
Heather is with the Community Foundation of Louisville. Welcome Heather,
Thank you, Virginia. We are so excited to be here today.
Thanks for having us perfect. Well, tell me a little
bit about the foundation and how it came to be

(00:47):
and how long you've been in business and you know,
the whole big thing.

Speaker 3 (00:50):
Okay, great, Yeah, So the Community Foundation of Louisville has
been around since nineteen eighty four, so we just celebrated
our fortieth anniversary last year, and we really exist to
try to help our community through philanthropy. So we try
to inspire generosity and foster philanthropy in our region so
that we can be a more thriving, successful city, and

(01:12):
we really try to do that in two main ways.
One is by helping individuals accomplish their own unique charitable
goals through lots of different products and services that we offer.
And then the second way is by having our own
programs and our own initiatives that we employ to try
to support the nonprofit sector as a whole and to

(01:34):
try to address some of our city's biggest challenges.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
So what are some of our biggest challenges?

Speaker 3 (01:39):
Well, you know, right now, we're really focusing on a
particular initiative that we call Invest Louisville that's addressing affordable housing,
land development, and entrepreneurship. We see those as three of
our biggest challenges that are really kind of holding our
city back right now. Best Louisville is a great new

(02:01):
initiative where people can actually join a pool of money
that we are then going to use to invest in
local businesses, local nonprofits that are focused on those three
areas awesome.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
Awesome. So how long have you been at the Foundation.

Speaker 3 (02:17):
I've been at the Foundation for nine years, starting in jail. Well,
I started in January twenty sixteen. I'm an attorney by trade,
so I did civil defense litigation before coming over to
the Foundation, and it's just been a very rewarding transition
for me.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
Well, the Chamber is a nonprofit as well, and again
it's a passionate kind of thing, and you find your
passion and then you stick to it.

Speaker 3 (02:42):
Yeah, yeah, this has been you know, I have kind
of a unique background before law school. I went to
Divinity School and just really was so interested in social justice,
social justice and public service.

Speaker 4 (02:59):
This has been a great way for me to kind.

Speaker 3 (03:01):
Of combine my legal background because some of the things
we do to help individuals requires kind of a legal background,
but also my interest in giving back and supporting the community.
And I just get to work with so many generous
individuals and see how they're accomplishing their goals and improving
the city.

Speaker 4 (03:17):
So it's been a great, a great job.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
So let's talk about individuals and how do they get
connected with you all and how do they learn about
the foundation and how can you help them?

Speaker 4 (03:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (03:26):
So we have a great website and we try to
spread the word about our services through professional advisors like
attorneys and CPAs and financial planners. So that's a big
way people learn about us. But you know, a lot
of people in town, I don't think know some of
the things that we can do and know some of
the ways that we can help. And I think really

(03:47):
the biggest way we can help individuals is by listening
to them, learning about their goals, learning about their passions,
and then coming up with the plan to figure out
how we can help them accomplish those goals. And one
of the big ways that we actually do that is
by creating and managing individual charitable giving accounts for people.

(04:08):
I don't know if you've ever heard about a donor
advice fund, but it's a great tool that people can
use to simplify their giving, make their giving more effective
and more meaningful. And we manage about two thousand individual
donor funds right now for people, and it's just a
great tool that people can utilize to make their giving
more effective, more organized, and simpler.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
And of course you would take a million dollars and
be happy with a million dollars, but I'm assuming not
everybody has a million dollars.

Speaker 3 (04:37):
Exactly, And with us, anybody can be a philanthropist. You
don't have to be a millionaire. We have donor advice
funds that do have a minimum but we also have
what we call a charitable checking fund, and there's no
minimum to open that type of account, and there's no
fee on that type of account. It's a completely free account.
So if someone wants to sort of dip their toes
in the water and see what it's like to have

(04:58):
an account with us, it's a great option. But one
reason why both of these types of accounts are so
beneficial is because when you put money into them, you're
making a tax deductible gift because we're a nonprofit, so
you get a tax deduction, and then the money sits
in your account until you're ready to give it away,
and you can use that money to support any nonprofit

(05:20):
in the country. It doesn't have to stay here in
Louisville or in Kentucky. And with a donor advice fund,
while that money is in your account, it's invested, so
ideally it's growing over time.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
So in a long run you'll hear a one K
issue exactly.

Speaker 3 (05:34):
It's like an investment account for your charitable giving, and
so in the long run that means you'll have more
money to give away.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
So I see this as starting early, maybe is when
you become an adult after college and just start a
savings plan to give back in your future exactly and
put it side by side with your four O one.

Speaker 4 (05:51):
K h exactly exactly.

Speaker 3 (05:53):
We even have you know, parents who are sort of
seeding accounts like this for their children to pass on
that value of giving back because it's important to their family.

Speaker 2 (06:03):
Awesome, Awesome. Can we talk about how you help them
people reach their goals?

Speaker 4 (06:08):
Absolutely?

Speaker 3 (06:09):
So, you know, a big way I mentioned earlier is
just by sitting down and talking with them, you know,
and learning what are you're passionate about, what are some
of your goals And a lot of times when people
come to us, you know, they want to find a
way to incorporate a gift into their legacy plans, into
their will or their estate plan. And so that's another

(06:30):
big way that we can help as well, because basically
we get all of that information from the individual when
we meet with them. You know, what types of organizations
do they want to support? For example, we put all
of those instructions into an agreement, and then that agreement
lives in our files until they pass away, and then
when they do pass away, a gift from their estate

(06:52):
basically activates that fund, and then we start carrying out
their instructions. So it's a great way to especially if
you want to support a lot lot of different organizations,
it's a great way to partner with us so that
we can carry out those goals.

Speaker 2 (07:07):
So what happens if their loved one doesn't know about
you all?

Speaker 4 (07:10):
If they're loved ones.

Speaker 2 (07:12):
Does it know that they've made this contribution, that they're
building this contribution and they pass away? How do you
all know that they passed away if you're not notified?

Speaker 4 (07:19):
Well, you know, lots of times we are.

Speaker 3 (07:21):
But if we're not, it's the responsibility of the executor
of the estate to basically carry out the instructions in
the person's will. So we rely on that executor or
maybe the attorney who's representing the estate to notify us.

Speaker 2 (07:34):
Okay, all right, the donor funds, why are they still beneficial?

Speaker 3 (07:39):
Well, you know I mentioned earlier that you get that
immediate tax deduction, and that's a big benefit for people.
So you know, you make your gift into your account,
you get the deduction in the year that you make
your gift, but then you retain that flexibility to distribute
the men the money over time to the charity of
your choice whenever it's convenient, and that really allows you

(08:01):
as the donor, to simplify your giving, make it more organized.
You know, if you're the type of person who supports
ten different organizations twenty different organizations every year, when it's
tax time, you're probably running around your house trying to
find your tax receipts get them all together to give
to your CPA, like you're doing maybe right now. Well,
with a fund with us, you don't have to worry

(08:22):
about any of that. We keep track of all of
that for you. So it just really makes your giving
more organized and simpler. I also say with a fund,
you know, when you have a fund with us, you
can time a big gift when it suits you. So
I know a lot of people at the Chamber Business Owners, Well,
it could be a year your business knocks it out
of the park and you have a big income year. Well,

(08:44):
when you have a big income year, often your taxes
go up right and you're owning more taxes. Well, you
can offset that income in the year when you need
to by making a big gift into your donor Advice fund.
You get the detaction your tax deduction in that when
you need it, and then the money sits in your
account until you're ready to give it away, so you can,

(09:05):
you know, time a big gift when it suits you
for your tax purposes, and it just can be a
really tax smart way to do your giving. A couple
of other reasons why donor advice funds are so great
is they're really easy to accept appreciated assets like publicly
traded stock. So instead of giving away cash, just think

(09:27):
about what your portfolio looks like. If you have shares
of Google or shares of Apple that you've owned for
twenty years. If you sell those yourself, you have to
pay capital gains taxes. We don't pay taxes. We're tax
exempt like any other nonprofit. So if you give those
shares of stock to us, we sell them for you.
The proceeds of that cell get plocked into your new account.

(09:48):
You have all of this cash to give away, you've
gotten a deduction for the fair market value of your stock,
and you've avoided paying capital gains taxes, So it's another
benefit to a donor advice fund. A couple of other
ones are you can give anonymously from a donor advice
fund because we send that distribution out for you on
your behalf. Also, you can pass a donor advice fund

(10:13):
on to your kids and grandkids. So we talked earlier
about passing this value of giving on. You can just
say that you'd like your kids to take over your
fund when you pass away, and then all of a sudden,
you've given them that value of philanthropy and they can
also pass it on to their kids as well.

Speaker 2 (10:30):
It's really cool. So you know, women to have a
tendency to change their minds. How often do you meet
with people and how often do they change their minds
about giving and what they want to give.

Speaker 4 (10:40):
To all the time.

Speaker 3 (10:41):
And that's the beauty of a donor advice fund and
a charitable checking fund. You don't have to decide anything
in the beginning. You can support any nonprofit you want
anytime you want. You don't have to tell us ahead
of time what you're going to be doing with the
fund or the types of organizations you're going to be supporting.
That's important when you're doing a west plan with us,
if you're doing something through your will, but even if

(11:04):
you are doing something from your will, if you set
something up with us this year and then of course
hopefully you live for another ten years or twenty years,
at any point during that time, if you want to
change your mind about the nonprofits you've named, you can
just contact us and it's super.

Speaker 4 (11:19):
Easy to change it.

Speaker 2 (11:20):
Awesome, awesome, So we're going to take a break. Stay
with us. We'll be right back with more with from
Heather at Community Foundation of Louisville on Talk Radio ten eighty.

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(11:58):
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Speaker 1 (12:05):
Thanks for listening to Talk Radio ten eighty.

Speaker 2 (12:10):
Welcome back, Welcome back, more from Heather from Community Foundation.
Let's talk about you talked about businesses and earning big
bucks one year and having a giant community give back
with the Chambers Saint Matthew. We have over eighteen hundred
members and it's mostly small businesses and small businesses. A
lot of times think I'm not a big business. I

(12:32):
don't have a million dollars to give, but you know what,
there's nonprofits out there be happy with five hundred dollars.

Speaker 3 (12:38):
Exactly exactly, and our funds people can give away as
little as one hundred dollars and have an account with us.
So I think knowing that we have that option is
really important for people to know, especially business owners.

Speaker 2 (12:52):
Is there any other benefits for business owners? Can they
bring their employees in on it?

Speaker 4 (12:57):
Absolutely?

Speaker 3 (12:58):
Absolutely, so I mentioned early that, you know, timing a
big gift when it suits the business is a great
way we can help. We also have some businesses in
town that we work with that use us for an
employee giving program. So there's one I can think of
who we've worked with for years, and they invite their
employees to do like a payroll deduction that goes into

(13:20):
their employee fund and then they get input from their
employees every year on how to distribute that money. There's
another company we work with in town that allocates a
certain amount for every employee to give away, and then
that employee gets to pick what nonprofit should get the
money that they've been allocated from their company. And this

(13:40):
business in town has told me that it has done
a you know, made a huge impact in employee retention,
employee engagement, connection to the businesses mission, and just overall
community involvement. So that's been a really great benefit too.
A couple of other ways, we have some businesses in
town who have corporate scholarship.

Speaker 4 (14:01):
Funds with us.

Speaker 3 (14:03):
So it's a scholarship fund that can actually benefit the
children of employees. So if you want to help your
employees and support their kids who are attending higher education
or pursuing higher education, we can do a scholarship fund
for that business and it supports children of their employees
who are pursuing higher education.

Speaker 2 (14:23):
Really cool.

Speaker 4 (14:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (14:24):
Another great thing for businesses is we can help if
they're wanting to incorporate a gift into their succession plan.
So if you have someone who's started a business, they've
run it for twenty years, thirty years, they're wanting to
retire and they're going to sell their business. That is
another year where their income is going to go up
significantly right in that particular year. So in the year

(14:47):
when they need a big deduction, they can start an
account with us, get that deduction, and then the money
basically has funded. They're giving maybe for the rest of
their life.

Speaker 2 (14:56):
So what you don't know is I came from a
family owned business for twenty plus years. People don't think
about succession planning. You know. It's usually the last three
or five years my mother started thinking about it. But
that's what that is, something that's so great, exactly.

Speaker 3 (15:08):
Well, and even if you really plan ahead. We cannot
only accept cash. We can accept shares of a privately
held business, so there are some rules and regulations around that.
But if you have an LLC or if you have
a partnership, we can accept shares of the business before
the sale happens and then hold that hold those shares

(15:31):
for you know, a few months or however long we
need to, and then we sell it to a third
party buyer or sometimes even the company redeems it back
from us for cash. That cash goes into the fund
that the donor created. So the individual has incorporated a
gift into this secession plan, gotten a tax deduction, avoided
capital gains and funded an account for their giving.

Speaker 2 (15:52):
So let's talk a little bit. I'm going to go
sideways here. Giving Tuesday in our community is really big
for the nonprofit industry. Is that just another day for
you all? Or is that another day that they go, oh,
send money here, send money here, send money here.

Speaker 3 (16:05):
You know it's our fundholders certainly participate in that to
some extent, but we don't. We don't rally behind that
quite as much. And one reason is because we host
another giving day for the community called Gift for Good Louisville, Okay,
And this is just one this is another way that
we are kind of helping the nonprofit sector in general.
So Give for Good always happens in September. We invite

(16:28):
any nonprofit in town to participate. I think last year
we had almost six hundred nonprofits participate, and it's a
twenty four hour day of online giving where we're basically
helping these nonprofits raise as much money as they possibly
can in this day. And I think last year we
raised almost ten million dollars, or we helped those nonprofits
raise almost ten million dollars. And so it's just it's

(16:49):
a way for us to really get behind and try
to support our nonprofit community as much as we can.

Speaker 2 (16:54):
And it's really open. So we have a nonprofit roundtable
that we work with many nonprofits in a lot of
other nonprofits don't know how to ask and they're small,
but it's just a phone call.

Speaker 4 (17:05):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (17:06):
And another great thing about gidfor Good Louisville is you know,
we're of course sponsoring and hosting the online platform, so
nonprofits aren't having to pay for that. But leading up
to the to the giving day, we offer a ton
of resources and trainings for the nonprofit to try to
educate them on how, you know, what are some good
development strategies, how can you do peer to peer fund raising,

(17:27):
how can you use social media to get the word
out more about your organization, How can you do a
better job of storytelling to really connect with new donors.
So we try to not just make it about one
twenty four hour day. We try to actually do a
lot of things leading up to that event, including in
person trainings, webinars, resources, all of that to help the community.

Speaker 2 (17:47):
It's just like a small business you start because you
have a passion and you're going to start this business
or this nonprofit because X, Y, and Z, and you
don't think about all the little other details in it,
but those details can make a huge difference. Absolutely, use
those tools correctly. You can come back with a lot
of money.

Speaker 3 (18:02):
Yeah, we have nonprofits on Gift for Good that raise
enough money to cover their whole budget for the entire year,
the small ones especially, Yes.

Speaker 2 (18:10):
Yes, And it's just phenomenal. So let's talk about some
of the unusual stories that she's enticed to me with
that you've come through.

Speaker 3 (18:17):
Yeah, so it's one of my favorite parts of my job. Well,
my favorite part of my job is really just meeting
all of these successful individuals who want to be generous
and want to give back. But occasionally we get weird,
complex gifts that come through our door and it's just like, ooh,
I want to work on this one. We had somebody
last year who wanted to give us gold bars that
he had owned for a long time.

Speaker 4 (18:38):
They'd appreciated in value.

Speaker 3 (18:39):
He didn't want to sell him himself, so we met
him down at the Numismatic Exchange, which I really cool.
I know, I've never even heard of, and he slid
the gold bars to us. You know, they were about
the size of a cell phone heavy. One was from Russia,
one of us from Canada. One it was from Switzerland,
and the gold guy you know at the Numismatic Exchange
cut us a check. I think it was almost one

(19:01):
hundred and eighty thousand dollars. We deposited into the donor's
charitable checking fund and he's been using it to support
his favorite nonprofits ever since.

Speaker 4 (19:09):
We have another example. People don't think.

Speaker 3 (19:12):
About this, but we get real estate pretty commonly. You know,
real estate appreciates over time. People have owned their real
estate for a long time. When they sell it, they
have all these capital gains taxes. And we had a
couple who owned a home in the Original Highlands for
thirty years. They had lived there, they had used it
as an office space, and then for the last ten
years or so they'd been renting it out and just

(19:33):
getting that rental income. Well, they didn't want to be
landlords anymore, and they didn't really need the income if
they seld the house themselves, and they didn't want to
pay all these capital gain taxes, so they gave the
house to us. We hired a real estate agent. It
sold for the full asking price within a couple of weeks.
The net proceeds of that sale went into their Donor
Advice Fund and they've been using that fund ever since

(19:56):
to support all of the nonprofit organizations that they love.

Speaker 2 (20:00):
That's really cool. I mean, again, off the beaten path,
you don't think about it. What about cars? I know
one at one time there's people that donate cars. That
was hot for a little while.

Speaker 3 (20:09):
It's true, and I think some organizations that really works
well for them.

Speaker 4 (20:14):
For us, we haven't had.

Speaker 3 (20:17):
Anybody approach us to donate a car, and I think
one reason is because cars don't typically appreciate over time.

Speaker 4 (20:23):
They depreciate, right, they lose value.

Speaker 3 (20:25):
So if you sell it yourself or traded in, you're
not going to be You're not subjecting yourself to capital
gain taxes. So it's not something that people typically bring
to us. But I don't know if somebody had, you know,
a Rollers Royce or something that they wanted to get
rid of, we would.

Speaker 2 (20:39):
Rare sixty eight Cobra mustang. I'd be right there for it, exactly.

Speaker 4 (20:43):
We would be open. Give us a call. You know,
we're not going to turn down you know, right, we'll see.

Speaker 2 (20:48):
So is there anything that we haven't talked about because
you all are so broad.

Speaker 3 (20:53):
We really are so broad, and I think that's what
makes us such an interesting organization. And then you know,
I think we've talked a lot about how we can
help individuals, but I think people we do have another
important part of our organization, and that is some of
that community leadership work, programmatic work like Gift for Good,

(21:15):
like invest Louisville. And you know, one thing that we
I know, you have so many members all across the
whole commonwealth. So one thing that we haven't mentioned is
the affiliate foundations that we have. So we are primarily
focused on Louisville, but we do try to foster and
encourage philanthropy across the whole commonwealth. And we have four
affiliate foundations in Kentucky. We have one down in Green River,

(21:39):
so in Owensborough, one in Wilderness Trace, the Wilderness Trace
area that's in Danville, one in Shelby County, and one
in Oldham County. And those affiliate foundations have their own
community fund, kind of like we also have a fund
for Louisville that supports just Louisville's evolving needs. And so
if you're someone living in that community or in Louisville,
and you think I want to support the future of

(22:00):
our city. I want to support future generations, but I
don't know what our city is going to need in
twenty years, or thirty years or fifty years. Well, that's
our job at the Community Foundation to keep our finger
on the pulse of this community and know what its
needs are right now and anticipate evolving needs. So you
can contribute to the Fund for Louisville or to one

(22:21):
of those affiliate community funds, and then we'll be there
to sort of direct and advise and use that money
to address the city's biggest challenges as they evolve over time.

Speaker 2 (22:31):
So as a chamber, how can we help you?

Speaker 3 (22:34):
Well, I think the biggest way is just helping us
get the word out about our services, our products, and
how we can help individuals with their giving and how
we try to help the city in general. We rely
a lot on financial planners CPAs, estate playing attorneys to
talk to their clients who often have these tax problems

(22:54):
and need to know about the tools that are out there.

Speaker 4 (22:58):
But I also I.

Speaker 3 (22:58):
Think spreading the word to business owners, other groups and
associations in town about how we can help, because really
we are trying to provide a service that will ultimately
inspire more generosity in our community.

Speaker 2 (23:10):
Yes, yes, and it's totally evolving. And I will say
the younger generation is very giving. They may not have
the money, but they have the time the time, I know,
and they're willing to give the time, so if they
can get invested right now. But I appreciate everything you
had to say today. It's been a real eye opener.
And I never assume who has money and who doesn't

(23:31):
because you stick your foot in your mouth. So hopefully
we're going to have some small businesses say hey, I
want to meet with you because I have some stuff
coming up.

Speaker 4 (23:40):
I hope so too.

Speaker 2 (23:40):
Well.

Speaker 3 (23:40):
And Sean Sparks is our director of Advisor Services and
Business Development, and he, you know, is a new member
with you all, and he has just loved meeting your
all's members and networking and coming to your alls events.
So if anybody has specific questions, they can reach out
to Sean or me.

Speaker 2 (23:56):
Awesome, awesome, Well, I'd like to thank you today for
coming in. Heather Cash with the Community Foundation of Louisville
for joining us. If you're interested on more information on
the Saint Matthews Chamber, check out our website at Stmatthews
Chamber dot com, or found us on Facebook and LinkedIn.
For more, tune in next week Talk Radio ten eighty