The recent school shootings and natural disasters throughout the United States, the one-year anniversary of the start of the Ukraine conflict, and the earthquake that has devastated Turkey and Syria are causing more and more people to consider ways they can help. While there is significant potential fraud, fortunately community foundations such as ours provide reliability and expediency to help people act on their charitable instincts.
There are many viable options to contribute towards relief efforts, but there are also caveats. While national and global disaster giving are important, it is also important to stay tuned to the most critical needs right here in our community. Although these critical needs do not always take the form of a time-bound disaster, the impact of ongoing crises such as low access to health care and poverty can be quite damaging over the long term.
How Our Community Foundation Can Help
The Foundation for MetroWest can help fulfill their giving objectives by acting as a secure, knowledgeable, and trustworthy facilitator. Our team personally knows and regularly vets hundreds of nonprofits every year, and we can help you navigate the options for both local and international giving.
Frequently, a donor-advised fund at a community foundation will be a suitable giving vehicle. Our team can help connect people to the causes they care about by identifying the most effective organizations addressing the critical needs both locally and globally in your areas of interest. Working with the community foundation also helps secure robust tax planning benefits that can be missed when someone gives to charity on an impulse.
Finally, a community foundation can help you steer clear of scams perpetrated via familiar-looking but sham websites and QR codes, both of which proliferate during highly emotional or threatening times surrounding a disaster. While you may be tempted to make a gift online or by phone out of compassion in response to a verbal solicitation or a news story, remember that our community foundation has much to offer—safely, securely and advantageously—when it’s time to make impactful humanitarian gifts both here and abroad.
To learn more, contact Lee Gagen at [email protected].
