The Sydney Community Foundation connects the community by linking donors with community organisations. By making a one off donation, establishing a subfund or leaving a bequest, you can support the community you love. You may also like to set up a regular donation from your account, paid on a fortnightly or a monthly basis. You can do this by selecting the fund you would like to support from the list below and downloading the relevant application form.
Types of Funds
Donors have the choice of a number of funds:
- The Sydney Community Foundation Tax Deductible Fund which provides full tax deductibility for all money contributed. The income from this fund is directed by the Board of the Foundation to authorised charitable institutions with deductible gift recipient status. This fund also holds the Lyndal Hutton Diabetes Awareness Subfund and collects donations for the Safe Haven project.
- The Sydney Community Foundation General Fund is a non-tax deductible fund. Gifts from this fund can be distributed for more general charitable purposes or according to specified wishes by their donors.
- The Sydney Womens Fund which provides full tax deductibility for all money contributed. The income from this fund is directed by the Board of the Foundation to authorised charitable institutions with deductible gift recipient status who are providing services that support women and girls.
The Sydney Community Foundation Board acts as trustee for all funds. For investment purposes all funds are pooled, but accounted for separately. Investment management services are outsourced to a reputable, professional fund manager subject to strict policy guidelines set by the Board.
Donating to a subfund
If you would like to make a donation to any of these funds please select the appropriate donation form. All donations made to the Sydney Community Foundation must be accompanied by a donation form.
To donate to the Tax Deductible Fund, click here.
To donate to the General Fund (no tax deduction available), click here.
To donate to the Sydney Womens Fund, click here.
Establishing a subfund
For further information on how a subfund can be established, please see: Establish a sub-fund.
What can I give?
Donations can consist of all forms of personal or real property. Gifts for which a tax deduction may be claimed include cash, property purchases in the last 12 months and trading stock. Property is defined to include land, art work, shares and some other rights and interests which have value. Such gifts will need to be professionally valued if a tax deduction is to be claimed.
Bequests
After providing for family and friends in their Will, an increasing number of people are considering leaving a proportion of their estate to help others in their local community.
The Sydney Community Foundation offers an ideal way to leave a bequest in your Will that will take account of your funding wishes and be carefully managed to benefit local people in your community forever. It will also associate your name with the community you lived in and loved.
There are a number of different ways in which you can leave a bequest to your Community Foundation. For example:
- A pecuniary bequest is a fixed amount specified in your Will.
- Gifts of shares or property are exempt from capital gains tax.
- A residuary bequest is the remaining value of your estate when all other bequests to family and friends have been made and your liabilities have been paid.
- A reversionary bequest allows a surviving partner to benefit from your estate during his or her lifetime and then for the balance of the estate to be paid to the Community Foundation on their death.
If you wish to make a bequest to the Sydney Community Foundation, we advise you to speak to your solicitor, who with us, will assist you to draft the terms of your gift.
For more information about making a bequest to the Sydney Community Foundation, contact us.
Become a Friend
The Sydney Community Foundation has established a Friends group. Our aim is to recruit 500 Sydneysiders who are committed to helping others to help themselves in the marginalised places of our sprawling metropolis. That’s what we are good at and what we have been doing for the past five years.
Your membership will connect you directly to our burgeoning array of causes, keeping you in touch with how and when these causes are being addressed and give you that terrific feeling of socially useful philanthropy for $500 per year, tax deductible.
For a donation form to become a Friend of the Sydney Community Foundation please click here.
Service fee
The SCF charges a service fee for the work that it does to manage donors funds and develop partnerships with the community. You can read our service fee policy here.