Business Funds
Design a giving program that reflects your company’s values, leveraging a comprehensive suite of services — including charitable giving expertise, tax-free investments, grantmaking guidance, and administrative support — to enhance your corporate philanthropy.
Lionakis Foundation
Maximize Your Company’s Impact
Build or enhance your philanthropic programs by leveraging our expertise, leadership, and knowledge of local communities. Establishing a Business Fund at the Sacramento Region Community Foundation offers your team efficiencies and strategic support, so you can maximize the impact of your company’s philanthropy. Here’s how it works.
Give
Start your business’s philanthropy by making a charitable contribution of cash, appreciated securities, or other assets to open your Business Fund.
Your contribution is tax-deductible and creates an immediate opportunity to support the causes and communities that matter most to you.
By giving through a Business Fund, you can align your charitable contributions with your business values, engage employees and stakeholders in giving, and establish a long-term resource that reflects your commitment to the community your business depends on.
Grow
Your fund is professionally invested and grows tax-free, allowing your company to give strategically and sustainably over time.
Your business — and your employees, if you choose — can contribute when it makes the most financial sense. We manage the investments, provide regular fund statements, and handle the administration, so you can focus on your business and your impact.
Plus, your fund’s competitive support fees are re-invested back into the Sacramento region through our programs like Big Day of Giving.
Grant
Put your philanthropy into action by recommending grants to nonprofits or creating an employee-led selection process to direct funding.
However you choose to make grant decisions, we ensure funds are distributed efficiently, responsibly, and in compliance with IRS regulations. As an added benefit, your fund’s support fees are reinvested locally — helping strengthen nonprofit capacity and multiply your business’s impact across the region.
Your Business Fund comes with services, expertise, and support to foster your company’s unique philanthropic signature, including these benefits:
✅ Personalized Service: We help maximize your grantmaking impact, keep you updated on your fund, and assist with donations, including planned gifts.
✅ Efficiency: Support causes seamlessly without the administrative burden of a private foundation or in-house philanthropy staff.
✅ Active Involvement: You and your team recommend organizations you’d like to support, and we handle the paperwork.
✅ Investment Expertise: Your Business Fund is invested, tax-free, by local professionals according to your wishes for growth and sustainability.
✅ Double Your Impact: You re-invest your support fees back into the Sacramento region through the Foundation’s impactful programs, including Big Day of Giving.
✅ Build Community & Brand: Connect with like-minded philanthropists at exclusive events and enhance your company’s visibility through features in our communications.
Partner with a local team dedicated to carrying out your company’s philanthropic aspirations. With over 40 years of experience as the capital region’s trusted philanthropic resource, we’re here to help you shape your impact.
“My message to business leaders interested in enhancing their company’s philanthropic efforts is simple: Just start….We decided to try and, with support from the Sacramento Region Community Foundation, it’s worked.”
Laura KnAUss, lionakis FOundation
Lionakis employees volunteering in the community
Create Your Fund
Submit the form below to begin the process of opening your Business Fund. Then, our team will follow-up with next steps.
Ready to learn more? We’re happy to work with you and your advisors to tailor a Business Fund that suits your company’s goals. Schedule a meeting to get started and contact us at any time with questions.
There are many benefits to opening a Business Fund at the Sacramento Region Community Foundation. Among them:
Personal service: We work with you and your team to increase the impact of your grantmaking, will keep you informed about your fund and the Foundation, and assist you in adding to your fund now or through planned gifts.
Efficiency: We help your team support causes regularly, while avoiding the administrative hassles of setting up and maintaining a private foundation or managing a corporate philanthropy program in-house.
Direct participation: You and your team recommend organizations you’d like to support, and we handle the paperwork.
Investment expertise: Your team’s contributions to your Corporate Fund are stewarded by our expert investment committee and professional managers to ensure the longevity and growth of your fund.
Ensured legacy: You define how your fund will be used after you and your team are no longer advisors – allowing your Business Fund to have a lasting legacy.
Opportunities: You’ll receive invitations to Foundation events. Plus, if you wish, have your business’s philanthropy highlighted in our regular communications, helping achieve your brand-building business goals.
The minimum contribution to set up a Business Fund is $10,000. Your fund can be endowed with a minimum of $50,000, ensuring it generates meaningful awards to support the causes your company cares about most — forever. We accept a variety of assets and have in-house expertise to process complex gifts, in collaboration with your and your financial advisors, ensuring you achieve the greatest tax advantages. Your fund can also received planned gifts. See Ways to Give.
You can invest your charitable fund in our professionally managed investment pools, designed to fit your time horizon and giving goals. See Investment Portfolios.
Our competitive support fees offset the cost of fund administration and are also reinvested in the Sacramento region through our grantmaking and programs — attending to critical regional issues, improving local lives, and multiplying the impact of your giving. Our support fees vary based on fund type and, in some cases, on the size of the fund. See our fee schedule.
With our commitment to delivering world-class philanthropy, we offer a variety of support services to donors. We handle all “back office” support for your fund(s). You will have access to our online donor portal, where our team will update your fund with information on contributions, grants, investment earnings, and more. In addition, our team is happy to conduct research about nonprofit causes on your behalf and does due diligence to ensure any nonprofit you want to support is an IRS-certified 501(c)(3) organization in good standing. Our Philanthropy Team is available during office hours to respond to your questions and needs.
Yes. Anyone can make a charitable contribution to your Business Fund through the transfer of a variety of assets, including cash, appreciated securities, real estate and more.
You can direct grants from your Business Fund at any time. Our granting policy recommends donors direct grants at least once a year, and requires a grant to be distributed at least once every three years.
Yes. Organizations you support must be certified 501(c)(3) charitable organizations. Our staff does the due diligence to ensure all nonprofit recipients are in good standing and actively certified as a 501(c)(3).
No. Through your Business Fund, you can support organizations that are in good standing and actively certified as a 501(c)(3).
More Ways to Get Involved
Join the Impact Collaborative
Engage your team, grow your visibility, and expand your network — all while knowing your charitable dollars are pooled, invested, and directed toward high-impact efforts.
Create Your Company’s Giving Page
Showcase your company’s commitment to local causes on our popular GivingEdge platform, and access real-time reporting on your team’s generosity.
Meet Businesses Making a Difference
Curious what other area businesses are doing with their charitable dollars? Peek behind the scenes of their purpose-driven giving, in partnership with the Foundation.
Let’s Get Started
Philanthropy is good business. We are your support staff, here to help you and your team give with confidence.
