Denver, CO— Rose Community Foundation has been selected as one of only nine new community partners to join 43 others participating in the Harold Grinspoon Foundation’s national Jewish legacy giving program that to date has secured more than 15,700 after-lifetime commitments with an estimated value of more than a half-billion dollars for communities across North America.
Rose Community Foundation has been encouraging endowment building and charitable bequests and planned giving in the Denver/Boulder Jewish communities since 1999 with the launch of The Endowment Challenge followed by four phases of Live On: Build Your Jewish Legacy. 2017 marked the thirteenth anniversary of endowment distributions totaling $13.95 million (cumulative amount) to the 19 Jewish organizations that participated in The Endowment Challenge (1999-2002). Based on the same model and goals as Live On, the Harold Grinspoon Foundation’s (HGF) LIFE & LEGACY(TM) program provides coaching, training and incentive grants to participating organizations to promote a community-wide legacy giving program, creating a shared goal for the organizations to work toward. Rose Community Foundation is planning for approximately 20 nonprofit participants in two different cohorts. One cohort will be for Jewish organizations that are new to legacy giving or have all new staff and volunteer leadership. The other will be for previous Live On participants to focus on strong stewardship practices and securing new promised legacy gifts.
“With its tested curriculum, a dedicated trainer and an annual national convening to share best practices, HGF’s LIFE & LEGACY will elevate community awareness and reenergize professional staff, volunteers and supporters around endowment building and legacy giving,” said Vicki Dansky, senior gift planning officer of Rose Community Foundation.
“Completely aligned with two of our Jewish Life priorities of building organizational strength and fostering leadership, LIFE & LEGACY has a formula that is working and will take our Live On work to the next level. We are excited for our collaboration with HGF and believe it will benefit our Jewish communities for generations to come,” added Rose Community Foundation’s Senior Program Officer, Lisa Farber Miller.
Upon meeting its community-wide goals and organizational benchmarks, Rose Community Foundation’s investment of more than $460,000 over the next two and half years in this effort will be matched up to $100,000 every year by the Grinspoon Foundation to provide participating organizations with the opportunity to receive unrestricted incentive grants.
“The Harold Grinspoon Foundation is very excited to be partnering with Rose Community Foundation to nurture the culture of legacy giving in the Greater Denver metropolitan area,” said Arlene D. Schiff, national director of the LIFE & LEGACY program. “The time is right. This legacy program will make the most of the generational transfer of wealth, change the language and landscape of giving and provide generous and forward-thinking members of the Denver/Boulder Jewish communities with the opportunity to express their passion, purpose and commitment to their most valued Jewish organizations.”
LIFE & LEGACY is the newest initiative of HGF that is investing $30 million dollars over a ten-year period to preserve vibrant Jewish life for future generations by ensuring the long-term financial health of Jewish community organizations in cities across North America, including the Greater Denver area.
“Providing Jewish communities with proven tools and training to help them secure their long-term financial goals is absolutely vital. Through the LIFE & LEGACY program, I’m hopeful that we will be able to help sustain vibrant communities that allow future generations to enjoy our rich Jewish culture and heritage,” said Harold Grinspoon, the founder of HGF.
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LIFE & LEGACY is a four-year partnership program of the Harold Grinspoon Foundation (HGF) that assists communities across North America, through partnerships with Jewish Federations and Foundations, to promote after-lifetime giving to benefit Jewish day schools, synagogues, social service organizations and other Jewish entities.
Live On: Build Your Jewish Legacy is a Rose Community Foundation initiative created in 2005 to help Jewish organizations in the Greater Denver metropolitan area integrate a culture of legacy giving into their institutions and build permanent endowments through bequests and planned gifts. To date Live On has encouraged more than 3,000 solicitations by 37 Jewish organizations resulting in 976 promised legacy gifts with a projected $56.7million impact.