Designated Funds let your clients perpetually support specific organizations they name. Grants from this type of fund are used for operating support for specific nonprofit organizations. Designated funds are often endowed in perpetuity with the income used to support the organizations. Recipients of current designated funds include area cultural organizations, colleges and private secondary schools, churches and social service organizations. Click here to download the Designated Funds sample form.

Example: I.M. Baker Jr. and Sarah Lee Baker Memorial Fund

During their marriage, Sarah and Isaac M. Baker Jr. found the Norfolk Botanical Garden to be a special sanctuary.

Through the years the Bakers "went to the garden every chance we got. We are very fortunate to have it right here in Norfolk. It is the only place you can go where it is perfectly quiet," Sarah Baker said before her death in 2002.

The Bakers were a young married couple when the garden opened in 1938. By the time an administration building, teahouse and Japanese garden were completed in 1962, the Bakers were established members of the Norfolk community. As president of the Lakewood Civic League, Isaac Baker presented national and city flags for the new administration building's rotunda. At the same ceremony Sarah Baker, president of the Lakewood Garden Club, unveiled a painting of Fred Heutte, long-time superintendent of the garden.

When the garden started a $5 million capital campaign in 1993, the Bakers were semi-retired and looking for a way to permanently support their community. They quietly gave a $1 million gift to kick off the garden's campaign to finance its renovation. In 1995, shortly before Isaac Baker's death, they established a fund with The Norfolk Foundation to perpetually provide income for the garden.

As Sarah Baker explained, "we had a good life in Norfolk and felt that we wanted to give back to the city something that had been given us."