What is the Litchfield Area Community Foundation? In the simplest terms it is a money facilitator. The Litchfield Area Community Foundation (LACF) works on several levels to promote an enhanced quality of life in our area by encouraging philanthropic contributions for local projects. The Litchfield Area Foundation is a resource for identifying and addressing community needs. Many of the large community foundations talk about being the "link" or "connection" between resources and need ... bringing the two together to get things done. The LACF facilitates giving by endorsing a project or projects of local eligible organizations and promoting the project. The LACF provides a means that had not existed for by which tax-deductible contributions may be made toward the project. The project fund can host one project at a time. The LACF does not manage any money. That is why we consider it a facilitator. Money flows through the local foundation to the Southwest Initiative Foundation. The contributions remain the assets of the LACF and disbursements are made at the directions of the foundation. The SWIF is a tax-exempt organization that manages and disburses the money. It is the basis for the tax-exempt contributions. A small fee is charged for the management service. The LACF is run by community volunteers and collects no fees for the work it performs. Our local organization receives support from the entire staff of the SWIF. On a second level the LACF is developing a trust fund. The SWIF provides matching funds until we have a trust fund of $50,000. We accept applications for grants to be funded by the local trust fund. Grants are considered for a wide variety of purposes. Requests may come from formal or informal community organizations working to enhance the community in various ways including the community itself, youth, senior citizens, minorities, etc. Our broad areas of focus complement other foundations that exist in the area such as the education and library foundations, which have more focused goals. The trust or endowment fund grants will be available from 5% of the principle in the fund. Finally, we solicit local funds to use for operational money that will provide the resources necessary to accomplish our goals. Technically a community foundation is defined as: as a tax-exempt, nonprofit, autonomous, publicly supported, nonsectarian philanthropic institution with a long term goal of building permanent, named component funds established by many separate donors for the broad-based charitable benefit of the residents of a defined geographic area, typically no larger than a state. | 
