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5 June 2008

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Community Foundation for Oak Park

Supporting our community with volunteers and grants since 1979.

Every day, your mail box contains a letter requesting a donation to some charity. As you sit down to dinner, your phone rings; it's a telemarketer for another charity seeking your money.

You feel somewhat guilty because you really would like to save the world … or at least a small part of it. But you just don't have the time to research these solicitations to weed out the legitimate charities from the fakes.

Consider creating a donor-defined fund with the Community Foundation. You set the charitable goals for your contribution, which might extend well beyond Oak Park. We then do the necessary research to ensure that your generosity is not misused. Further, with a structured donation, you can establish a long-term program of charitable gifts while realizing immediate tax advantages.

Contact your Community Foundation for details.

The Community Foundation was established in 1979 to satisfy two community needs in Oak Park:

In support of specialized volunteer efforts, the Foundation would create standing committees — activity committees — so that multiple non-profit, tax exempt organizations would not have to incorporate separately.
In response to the passage of Proposition 13, the Foundation would raise funds through donations to support needed and desired community programs and projects for which tax funds were inappropriate or no longer available.

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Announcements

The Golden Acorn Award: presented for outstanding community service

A Letter from the Community Foundation's President

The Community Foundation and Ballot Propositions

Tax and Estate Planning: information for professional planners

Donate to the Community Foundation through the Web

Documents: a central list of reports, policies, forms, and other Community Foundation documents

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The incorporation of the Community Foundation was supported by volunteers and a grant from the Oak Park Civic Association, which directed that the Foundation give special emphasis to the youth of the community. When the Civic Association dissolved a few years later, its remaining funds were donated to the Foundation, which created a Civic Association Fund to further the public purposes of that organization.

Today, well over half of the funds raised by the Foundation and its activity committees are spent in support of the students of the Oak Park Unified School District. Also, well over half the volunteers within the activity committees are involved in school-related programs. Thus, the Foundation continues to fulfill the direction to serve youth.

However, the Community Foundation also supports other programs and public-benefit organizations — public and private — serving Oak Park. Four examples:

Before local elections, the Foundation conducts non-partisan forums for candidates.
Grants from the Foundation's Oak Tree Fund have been used by the Rancho Simi Recreation and Park District to restore the oak forest in the hills around Oak Park and to conduct a well-attended dedication for the Oak Park Community Center.
The Foundation maintains a CERT Fund to support the Community Emergency Response Team, volunteers trained to aid in the event of earthquake, wildfire, and other local disasters.
The Friends of the Oak Park Library — an activity committee of the Foundation — provides both volunteers and funds in support of the Oak Park Library, a unique combination of public and high school library.

The Community Foundation is definitely more than a school foundation.

Structured donations to a charity can be an important part of tax and estate planning. The Community Foundation is prepared to work with a potential donor not only to reduce taxes but also to benefit heirs and support the donor's long-term charitable goals. To support structured donations, the Community Foundation has formed a relationship with a much larger, long-established foundation that has access to trust services and professional investment managers and can create charitable annuities. Please see our Donations page for details. (Professional planners should see our Tax and Estate Planning page.)

Activity Committees: A variety of opportunities to volunteer in support of the community.

Special Funds: Directing resources to meet your own charitable wishes as a donor.

Donations: Expressing generosity to the community, including through structured donations for estate planning and income tax reduction and matching donations from employers and other businesses.

Grants: Funding for community programs and projects.

Tax-Exempt Status: Providing benefits in response to generosity.

Governance: Operating entirely through unpaid volunteers with very low overhead.

Notices: Copyright, Privacy, Cookies, and External Web Pages

Contacts • Webmaster

While you are navigating through other pages in this Web site, look for the little acorn if you want to return to this home page. You may select the image or the word Home underneath it.

Last updated 5 June 2008

P. O. Box 291 • Agoura, CA 91376-0291

The Community Foundation for Oak Park is incorporated in California
as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt, public-benefit charity.

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