Create a donor-advised fund in four steps

Creating a donor-advised fund with Fondation de France is the safest, quickest, simplest and most efficient and cost effective way of dedicating your commitment to the public interest. Our advisers guide you and help you throughout the process to ensure you make the choices that are right for you.

The process of setting up a donor-advised fund takes three to six months. During that time, our experts will meet you, as well as all other people involved in the project, such as family members, staff and your company’s executive team. We build a customized project and a shared working model with you.

1. Set out your project’s purpose and its operational model
2. Decide the funding mechanism for your foundation
3. Choose a governance strategy
4. Draw up a contract with Fondation de France, once the Board of Directors Bureau has given its approval

1. Set out your project

Step 1 gives you the opportunity to identify what it is that drives your project.

The first principle to be met is that a donor-advised fund must be of public interest and its mission aligned with the interests of the sheltering foundation

Fondation de France is able to act in all nonprofit sectors such as medical research, combating early school leaving and support for the very elderly among many other fields. The donor-advised fund it shelters can therefore commit to the causes the funder is most passionate about. The purpose of your foundation can be broad in scope and address a number of causes. At the other end of the spectrum, it can be a very specific purpose you are particularly passionate about.

2. Decide the funding mechanism

A foundation with or without an endowment? Permanent, or not? How much capital, and what resources? Fondation de France experts help you identify your foundation’s funding mechanism and the way in which you can then allocate the funds to stakeholders on the ground and to the nonprofits you have decided to support.

The minimum financial commitment required is 200,000 euros to be contributed over five years.

3. Choose your governance strategy

A donor-advised fund is not in itself a legal person. It shares that status with its sheltering foundation.

However, you can choose:

• the name and visual identity;
• the governance model: acting simply by yourself, with family members, in a group of friends or in an executive committee, or you can entrust governance directly to Fondation de France;
• the management of the funds invested: collectively (choose from funds suggested by Fondation de France), or individually (in the banking establishment of your choice).

4. Have your project approved by the Fondation de France Board of Directors

Once finalized, your project is submitted to the Bureau of the Fondation de France Board of Directors for their approval. The Bureau comprises exacting experts who are recognized for their expertise in philanthropy. This step serves to confirm the quality of your project and works on the mutual trust that links you with Fondation de France.