Agency endowment is ‘the ultimate gift’
Alternatives For Girls — a Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan endowed fund partner — empowers homeless and at-risk young women by providing critical interventions including youth programs, an emergency shelter, housing assistance, support for survivors of human trafficking and domestic violence, workforce development and child care.
“Nobody chooses to grow up in a family with instability or violence,” says Cecile Aitchison, chief development officer at the Detroit-based nonprofit. “We’re supporting the young women we serve to see themselves outside their immediate circumstances. We want them to feel valued enough that they start thinking about their future in brighter terms.”
In 2005, Alternatives For Girls established its first agency endowment fund at the Community Foundation. The nonprofit’s goal was to create a sustainable funding source so it could continue to help young women break the cycle of poverty and become economically independent.
Alternatives For Girls is one of nearly 250 nonprofits throughout southeast Michigan that benefit from agency endowment funds at the Community Foundation.
What is agency endowment?
Agency endowment works like this: A nonprofit makes an initial financial contribution to establish a fund, and then the Community Foundation nurtures the investment over time. A portion of the fund is made available annually to the nonprofit, and the remaining assets are reinvested for growth in perpetuity.
The Community Foundation offers marketing support and handles all of the agency endowment fund’s administration, including gift processing, audit letters and investment management.
This frees up the nonprofit to focus on its work in the community, with the peace of mind that comes from knowing it will have funds to depend on in the future.
Endowment in action at Alternatives For Girls
“Young women and girls are some of the most vulnerable populations in our community,” Aitchison says. “The systemic issues they may face around the safety of their communities, the stability of their families, and support for their educational achievement are exacerbated if basic needs such as food, transportation and health care are also a challenge.”
As long as these challenges exist, there will be a need for the services Alternatives For Girls provides. Aitchison says agency endowment allows the organization to plan to meet this need and to have strategic conversations with donors about their legacy giving.
“What it signals is that Alternatives For Girls is a mature organization with future funding stability front of mind. And we’re partnered with another mature organization that will manage our investments,” she says. “Everybody knows the Community Foundation. It’s a very trusted presence in the community.”
This story originally appeared in the 2023-2024 Annual Report