Stewards of the Georgia Coast is a network of donors who have a passion for coastal conservation philanthropy. Our mission is to widen the circle of people who recognize the special qualities of the Georgia coast and who feel motivated to work on its behalf – with charitable giving, personal engagement, and influence. To achieve this, Stewards of the Georgia Coast hosts educational gatherings and publishes communications to increase awareness of and investment in coastal conservation nonprofits.

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Make a Donation

There are many ways to support the work of The Communities of Coastal Georgia Foundation to strengthen philanthropy for our coastal communities. 

Open a Fund

There are many different types of funds and each can serve your needs, whether you're looking for short-term flexibility in your giving or a long-term legacy. Explore the Foundation's funds to find what is right for you or contact our office for more information. 

Open a Fund

Give to the Coastal Georgia Foundation's Unrestricted Fund

The Communities of Coastal Georgia Foundation's Unrestricted Fund supports the annual operating expenses of the Foundation. Your gift to this fund creates a revenue source so the Foundation can continue to be the community's philanthropic knowledge expert and charitable resource manager.  

Give to the Coastal Community Endowment

The Coastal Community Endowment is a permanent fund that supports a broad range of  community needs from feeding the hungry, educating youth, protecting our coastal environment, nourishing the arts, revitalizing neighborhoods and more. This fund also contributes to our competitive Community Impact Fund grants program, which runs annually beginning in January to support programs serving at-risk youth and their caregivers. 

Give to an Existing Fund

Explore our existing funds - there may already be a fund that supports your passion in the community. 

Explore Our Funds

Ways to Give

Cash

Gifts of cash or check are the most convenient way to make a charitable contribution and can be used to establish your own fund or add to one of the Foundation's existing funds. Cash gifts entitle you to a tax deduction of up to 60% of your adjusted gross income (AGI), with an opportunity to carry-over any excess deduction for five years.

Securities

Gifts of appreciated securities (bonds and stock, including stock in closely held companies) may also be used to establish a fund or add to an existing fund. Such gifts often provide important tax advantages. Their full fair market value is deductible as a charitable contribution up to 30 percent of your adjusted gross income. As with gifts of cash, deduction amounts exceeding this limit may be carried forward for up to five additional years. The added benefit of giving appreciated securities is the avoidance of the capital gains tax on the appreciated portion of the gift. Gift of Stock instructions.

Real Estate

A gift of real estate held more than a year can provide the same federal tax advantages as those described for gifts of securities. If you are thinking of contributing real estate, it is important that you contact us prior to any action as such gifts must be reviewed by the Foundation's Board of Directors. Upon request, we will be happy to provide you, or your professional advisor, with the section of our gift acceptance policy that deals with proposed gifts of real estate.

Art, Jewelry, Antiques, and other Valuables

The Foundation is able to assist a fundholder with the liquidation of heirlooms and other estate items and allows for those proceeds to be used to establish or add to an existing fund. The greatest tax benefit comes when the donated object is considered to be a long-term capital gain property by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that has been held more than one year.

Assets from Trusts or a Private Foundation

To the extent you are permitted by law to make grants from a private foundation, you can direct those grants to the community foundation. In most cases, if a private foundation has become burdensome, it is possible to terminate it completely and transfer its assets to create a donor advised fund or other type fund at a community foundation.

Charitable IRA Rollover

IRAs can qualify for tax-free charitable distributions. The Coastal Georgia Foundation can help turn your individual retirement accounts (IRAs) into tax-saving charitable gifts. Extended tax benefits allow more people to experience the joy of giving during their lifetimes. More information.

Make a Donation

Now it's easier than ever to make the gift of a lifetime.

IRAs can qualify for tax-free charitable distributions.

The Communities of Coastal Georgia Foundation can help turn your individual retirement accounts (IRAs) into tax-saving charitable gifts. Extended tax benefits allow more people to experience the joy of giving during their lifetimes.

You can give more for less.
Thanks to new legislation, American seniors can make the gift of a lifetime by giving their IRAs to charity without federal tax penalty. So your retirement funds can go further than ever before.

You can make a difference.
The Foundation can help you connect to the causes you care about most. You can set up a charitable fund in your name or make an unrestricted gift. Giving is one of life’s pleasures; we can help you enjoy it today.

To learn more, please contact info@coastalgeorgiafoundation.org or (912) 268-4442.

You can give more for less.
Charitable IRA

For years, estate planners have recommended that retirement assets may be the most tax-effective asset in larger estates to distribute to charity. These assets are not only vulnerable to heavy taxation as part of an estate, but also can be taxed again as income in respect to a decedent on the tax returns of heirs.

Until recent legislation, there was a disincentive for retirees to give IRAs to charity during their lifetimes because withdrawals from IRAs were subject to income tax—even those given to charity.

Annually, retirement assets may become a preferred charitable gift for seniors. IRA distributions to charities can receive special tax advantages. Americans age 70½ and up can make tax-free IRA contributions to public charities such as the Coastal Georgia Foundation.

Frequently Asked Questions

Donor directed funds are corporate, community and individually directed funds.

Donor Advised Funds - Many of our grants are recommended by donors through their Donor Advised Funds. Donors may recommend grants to nonprofit organizations, according to their charitable interests. Donor advised funds do not accept applications.

Corporate Groups:

Rich's Consumer Brands Charitable Fund - Working together with partners, locally and globally, building relationships, and sharing time, talents and financial resources to improve the lives of children and youth through education, sportsmanship and health promotion.

The Hospice of the Golden Isles, Inc. Fund - Was established to ensure long-lasting and legacy support for the region's award-winning, non-proft, community-based provider of hospice and palliative care.

Community Funds and Giving Circles:

Golden Isles Fund for Trees (GIFT) - To provide for the preservation and enhancement of the tree canopy in Glynn County through education, advocacy and the planting, maintenance and replacement of trees.

Golden Isles Charitable Fund for the Arts - To provide ongoing as well as focused support for current and enhanced quality arts programming across Glynn County, to include music, performance and the visual arts.

"The mass of men worry themselves into nameless graves while here and there a great unselfish soul forgets himself into immortality."- Ralph Waldo Emerson 

A planned gift is a charitable donation created during your lifetime but in most cases not available to the Foundation until sometime in the future. Types of planned gifts include:

Bequest by Will

An outright bequest to the Foundation is the simplest means for providing for your community.

Life Insurance

Life insurance policies can be used to create a fund, or the Foundation can be named as the owner of a new policy for a fund to be created at a future time.

IRA or Qualified Plan

Funding a charitable bequest with an IRA or retirement plan can be a very effective way of making a gift with estate tax benefits.

Charitable Remainder Trust

A charitable remainder trust offers a gift to the Foundation. It provides a current income tax deduction for a future gift.

Charitable Lead Trust

Assets transferred to this trust are eventually returned to the donor or, more typically, to the donor’s children. Income is paid to the Foundation annually while the assets are in the trust.

What Can I Give?

A variety of assets can be used to make charitable gifts, including:

Cash

Cash gifts are an easy way to make an impact in your community and allow you to give at any time.

Securities

Securities, both publicly traded and closely held, can be used to set up a fund.

Real and Personal Property

Gifting real and personal property often allows an individual to contribute more than they may have thought possible.

IRA/Retirement Fund Assets

Retirement assets are most often used as testamentary gifts, creating charitable funds as part of an overall estate plan.

Life Insurance

Life insurance makes it possible to make meaningful gifts to the community and to create a fund.

How Do I Decide?

You have several options when it comes to your charitable giving. Our staff will work closely with you and your professional advisors to identify a gift that meets your needs.

Charitable Giving Scenarios

For a document containing sample estate planning language: Click here

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The Legacy Society (Footprint Fellows) recognizes and honors those individuals who have made a place for the Communities of Coastal Georgia Foundation in their estate plans through a bequest, charitable remainder trust, gift of life insurance or other type of charitable planned gifts.

Our Community Foundation's endowment - its "savings account" for future generations of Coastal Georgians that will always be there to address critical issues and needs as they arise - is ultimately built on the dreams and desires of Coastal Georgians as stated in their wills and estate plans.

Working with you, your attorney or tax advisor, we can suggest bequests, trust instruments, gifts of life insurance, IRA distributions, and other ways to provide a legacy of charity while realizing substantial tax savings.

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Anne and Morton Boyd

Beth S. and George M. Dupuy

Martha Brumley Ellis

Cheri and Vance Leavy

Jeanne Kaufmann Manning

Georgia Ann and Jack Markley

Frances and Dennie McCrary

Susan and Don Myers

Ben T. Slade, III

Gwendolyn Stevens

Lillian S. White

Help us build the community's endowed fund through your estate plans. You can also endow funds for your favorite local charity and place them under the stewardship of the Community Foundation. (It's easy and can be done by adding a single paragraph to your will). Please call us at (912) 268-4442 for a confidential discussion.

Agency Endowment Funds

Nonprofit agencies may create endowment funds for the benefit of the agency itself and receive grant distributions annually in perpetuity

May be established with a minimum gift of $10,000.

Designated Endowment Funds

Donors may create a designated endowment fund for specific nonprofit or religious organizations, which will receive annual grant distributions from the fund in perpetuity.

May be established with a minimum gift of $25,000.

Field of Interest Endowment Funds

Donors may create endowment funds from which grants are to be made within broadly defined categories of interest (such as the arts, education, the environment, etc.)

The Foundation's Board of Directors and professional staff develop strategies and award grants to achieve maximum effect within the donor's specified area of interest.

May be established with a minimum gift of $25,000.

Scholarship Funds

Donors may establish a scholarship fund for students with defined characteristics and may participate in the selection process as a member of a committee.

Donors may establish a scholarship fund for a particular college or school and allow the school to select the recipient scholar.

Scholarship Funds are generally endowed and maybe established with a minimum of $100,000, and a balance of $100,000 must be maintained for the awarding of scholarships.

Bridge Funds

Donors may open a fund with only $1,000, with the requirement to grow it to $10,000 minimum over a ten year period. These funds are designed to help people become philanthropists. Bridge Funds may make one grant per year with a minimum gift amount of $250.  

Non Endowed Agency Funds

Not-for-profits may create a non-endowed fund with $100,000 and make annual grants from the fund. Any annual distribution request must be at the $10,000 level or above.

The Communities of Coastal Georgia Foundation is composed of endowed and non-endowed funds, established by those who wish to create a charitable legacy that benefits causes they care about most in our region. Endowments are permanent funds created when a gift is made and invested. The income is used now and in the future for charitable grantmaking. Through endowments, legacies are created.

A gift to the Communities of Coastal Georgia Foundation can be expected to grow and provide for community needs well into the future. While we don’t know what tomorrow’s challenges may be, we do know that endowments built at the Foundation will continue to exist to help meet those needs. Each year, through donor funds and a competitive grants process, the Foundation invests over two million dollars in worthwhile causes that strengthen communities.

We can help you establish any of the following different types of funds as well as many others. Each provide for significant tax advantages in the present with the certainty of long-term philanthropy.  For certain funds, the new Charitable IRA Transfer affords an ideal tax-saving mechanism to fund your philanthropy. Learn More

DONOR ADVISED FUNDS

This is the Foundation’s most flexible and popular fund allowing the donor to make grant recommendations to a broad range of charities. Donors work with the Foundation staff to identify ways to use monies from their funds to address the community needs they care about most. In addition, the funds can be passed on to successor advisors for an unlimited time period, allowing future generations to be involved in funding decisions.  Click here to access a fillable form.

DESIGNATED FUNDS

Local and regional recipient charities are named at the establishment of the fund. This may be a good option for those who wish to contribute to several specific charities through one gift.

UNRESTRICTED FUNDS

Donating to the Foundation’s general fund allows the donor to give back to the community in a general way, rather than supporting a particular organization or cause. The funds meet everchanging community needs and support the Foundation’s broader grantmaking initiatives. As worthy needs or emergencies arise, these funds ensure that financial resources are available.

FIELD OF INTEREST FUNDS

This type of fund allows the donor to designate funds to a particular charitable cause to meet a particular need. Areas of interest such as education, youth services, health and human services, arts and culture, faith-based initiatives, the environment and animal welfare are defined by donor priorities.

To establish these funds, the Foundation accepts various types of assets, including cash and appreciated property, publically traded stock, closely held stock and/or real estate. The Foundation also accepts deferred or planned charitable gifts including bequests, life insurance, trusts, annuities, retirement accounts, life estates and other options. At your direction, we are pleased to work on your behalf with your attorney, tax professional and/or financial advisor to carry out your wishes.

A half century ago, Paul Cesarz made a choice that continues to benefit his community today.  He created an endowed fund in 1952 with $150,000 in assets.  The fund immediately began earning income and distributing grants to causes important to him.  Fifty years later and 35 years after Paul's death, the Cesarz Fund had grown to $1,066,003.  And in that 50th year, it generated more than $50,000 in grants, supporting a range of community needs--a park renovation, a museum exhibit, cancer research, and more.  Because Paul chose to endow his gift, he has enabled more than $1.1 million in grants to go to his community--almost eight times the impact he would have made by giving the original gift to charity all at once.  And though Paul has passed away, the fund in his name will go on supporting his community, leaving a lasting legacy.

Think about what such a gift could do in our community......