When George Creel was getting ready to retire 12 years ago, he and his wife decided to invest in charities, but knew they didn't have the $5 million it takes to start a private foundation. Their financial adviser suggested a community foundation, where the cost to set up a fund is affordable.

Creel read about the Maryland-based National Catholic Community Foundation in The Catholic Review, newspaper of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, and he knew he found the right place to start his philanthropy. It took $10,000 to set up a donor-advised fund with the foundation.

This means the Creels, of Davidsonville, Md., can tell the foundation which charities they would like to invest in. Unlike other funds, theirs is not bound by geography.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 27th, 2009 at 12:59 pm and is filed under Community Foundations, Philanthropy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.