Fund Fields – Foundant Technologies

Numerous fund setup options are available in CommunitySuite, and the selections you make are unique per fund. Use of the various fund areas is based on the types of funds your foundation has established.

When creating a new fund, or editing an existing one, there are several sections or field groupings beginning with general setup information.

General Information

Name - Fund name from the Fund Agreement.
- This is a required field.
Short Name - Abbreviated name of the fund.
- For implementation, consider if you want to keep the structure the same as the old system for consistency with your historical funds.
  - Example: abbreviated name or numbering system.
- All short names should be entered unique. The system will not prevent you from using the same short name twice.
- Do not change this while in training.
Public Name - The name that will appear on the Giving Hub, Fund Management tab of the Portal, and the (legacy) Fund Advisor Portal, which is sometimes known as a Donor Portal.
- If left blank, the Name field will be used.
Sort Key - Numeric key from 1-99, which will prioritize the fund within the fund group.
- If a sort key is not defined, then funds will be sorted in alphabetical order.
- For implementation, if a sort key is not defined or defined as it was in FIMS, then funds will be sorted in alphabetical order.
Group - Used for reporting and segmentation.
- This is a required field.
- Funds promoted to the Giving Hub will be categorized in the portal based upon this selection.
- These categories should be the most common used way to report on funds or segment them when looking at the data.
SubGroup - Used for reporting and segmentation.
Division - Used for reporting and segmentation.
- There are standard 990 reports to run for all the funds based upon the fund divisions in the system.
- Set up divisions if running 990 reports for different taxable entities. This could be for supporting organizations or different legal entities within the foundation.
Segment - Used for reporting and segmentation.
Subof Fund - Establishes a connection to a parent fund for reporting and fund statement purposes.
- The fund selected will act as the parent fund, also known as the master fund. In financial reports, the two funds will be rolled into one line item with the parent fund shown on the report.
  - In all financial reports, there is an option to show the parent fund by itself without the child fund being consolidated into the same view or report.
- Do not establish this connection while in training; it will be a post-live item if needed.
Anonymous - If checked, when grants are made from this fund, the check will show anonymous and the fund name will populate as Anonymous in the grant letter. The fund will appear on the Giving Hub as Anonymous, and fund name will appear as Anonymous in some reports.
- Fund advisors are not able to opt out of having a grant as anonymous from the Fund Advisor Portal if this is set on the fund within the system. The fund advisor would have to communicate to the foundation directly if they want to have the fund name shared.
- Grants can be individually marked as anonymous even if this is not selected on the fund.
Donor Advised - Designates the fund as donor advised for reporting purposes.
- There is no system functionality tied to this setting.
Agency Fund - Designates the fund as an agency fund for reporting purposes.
- If using the Agency Contra Fund functionality, this setting automatically generates a monthly or year-end journal entry to record the liability on the agency contra fund for the change in net assets for the period.
Affiliate Fund - Designates the fund as affiliate for reporting purposes.
- For implementation, consider if you have a supporting org.
Budget - If checked, the fund can be added to your annual budget.
- If checked, a separate budget for this fund can be set up.
Default Grant Type - If populated, all grants will be auto populated with the selected grant type.
- The grant type on an individual grant can be changed.
- If the default grant type on a grantee is different than the grant type on the fund, the grant type from the grantee profile will be what is populated on the grant.
Service Area - Typically used for geographic designation and allows you to select that geographic area the fund supports. Once selected, this can be used in reporting.
- Can be set on profiles and funds and will impact grants.
- If a service area is set on a grantee and a new grant is created for that grantee, the service area auto-fills on the grant record.
- If the grantee service area is blank but the granting fund has a service area, the granting fund's service area will auto-fill on the grant record.
  - The auto-filled service area can be changed on the grant.
Loans - Enables a fund to be used with the Loans feature.
Fund Steward - This is a community foundation employee and system user that will shepherd the fund.
- This can be shown on the Fund Advisor Portal.
Internal Description - An internally displayed description of the fund and its purpose.

Restrictions

Default Restriction - Default is the equity account that the net income is closed into at the end of the month/fiscal year. Interest and earnings close into it.
- If set, this will populate in the Fund Balance report.
- There is no system functionality tied to this setting.
Endowed - If set, Principal Net Assets will automatically be increased when donations are posted including internal donations resulting from internal grants.
With Donor Restrictions - Set if the fund has donor restrictions.
- If set, this will have column reporting.
- If set, this will populate in the Balance Sheets and Income Statements reports if the Fund Restrictions column option is enabled on the report.
- There is no system functionality tied to this setting.
- This can be used in conjunction with the Default, Spendable, and Principal Restrictions.
Principal Restriction - Restriction for the principal fund balance equity account.
- If set, this will populate in the Fund Balance report.
- There is no system functionality tied to this setting.
Track Spendable - If checked, the spendable balance of the fund will be tracked.
- If set, spendable balance will be its own column on the Fund Balance report.
- Turn on for those funds that are a part of the spending policy.
  - This is necessary in order for the distribution process to work and for grants and scholarships to reduce the spendable balance.
- Do not turn on for 100% spendable/unrestricted funds.
- If using {{spendable_balance}} or Spendable Net Asset Restriction Account {{equity_XXXXX}}, it will show on the Fund Statement.
- If set, the spendable will be impacted automatically when grants or scholarships are posted.
- If set, it will show the spendable on the Fund Advisor Portal.
Do Not Enforce Spendable - Fund advisors, also known as fund owners, are not limited to the spendable balance for grant requests if this box is checked.
Spendable Restriction - Restriction for the spendable fund balance equity account.
- If set, this will populate in the Fund Balance report.
- There is no system functionality tied to this setting.

Distributions

Distribution Start Date - The date on which distributions for the fund will be processed.
Spendable In Checking - If checked, the spendable balance of the fund will be kept in the checking account.
- This is only applicable if the manage cash feature is turned on.
- If checked, the system will suggest that the entire spendable balance is transferred out of investment assets and into the checking account when balance swaps are performed.
- If not checked, the system will assume that the entire fund balance should follow the investment strategy.
Distribution Type - Sets the distribution/spending policy for the funds that have a spending policy.
Distribution Interval - Determines how often the distribution type is processed.
- When the distribution interval is set, it will prevent users from processing a distribution type that is not aligned with this interval.
- This acts as a restriction if you only have spendable policies that are run once a year. If you have spendable policies that need to be run more than once a year, this does need to be set in order to have the correct calculation.
- If set, you can only post on the end date or beginning date of that interval.

Giving Hub

No Memorials - Check the box to remove the ability for the public to designate donations as honor or memory tributes on the Giving Hub.
Promote - If checked, the fund will appear on the main Giving Hub.
- If Promote and Private are both set, the system will default to private.
Promote Sort Order - Specifies the order in which the fund displays relative to other funds on the Giving Hub.
Promote End Date - The date on which the fund will no longer appear on the Giving Hub.
Private - If checked, the fund will not be visible on the Giving Hub.
- If checked, fund advisors can donate to the fund when they are logged in to their fund advisor portal if they click the Donate tab. However, the fund will not be visible to them when searching on the Grant Request tab of their fund advisor portal.
- If Promote and Private are both set, the system will default to private.
Fund Summary - Summary of the fund's intended purpose, description, or other relevant information.
- This field is externally facing and populates to the Giving Hub.
Fund Detail Summary - Allows for more detailed fund information as there is no character limit and the field is HTML compatible.

Fund Advisor Portal

Hide Amounts - If checked and also if Show History on Portal is checked, the Top 10 Contributors graph will be removed from the fund advisor portal. Contributions by Year line graph will still display.
- If checked, the fund statement will not display individual donation amounts in the foreach section. The total donation amount can still be displayed on the fund statement in the foreachreceipts section if that section is used on the fund statement template.
Hide Memorial Amounts - If checked, donation amounts for donations that were given in honor or in memory of will be hidden from fund advisors in the Fund Advisor Portal.
- This setting does not hide donation amounts on fund statements.
Show History On Portal - If checked, this replaces the default fund home page on the fund advisor portal with the charts and graphs that generate if Reports > History in the left-side menu of the fund is clicked.
- If checked and also if Hide Amounts is checked, the Top 10 Contributors graph will be removed from the fund advisor portal. Contributions by Year line graph will still display.
Hide Spendable on Portal - If checked, the spendable balance for this fund will not be displayed on the Portal.
Allow Additional Advisors - Allows fund advisors to make grant requests on behalf of other advisors.
- This does not need to be selected to have more than one fund advisor setup on a fund.
Require Primary Advisor Approval - If enabled, grant requests made by anyone other than the primary fund advisor must first be approved by the primary fund advisor before being converted to a grant.

Fund Statements

Statements - If checked, fund statements for the fund can be generated.
- Turn on for all funds that send statements to fund advisors.
- If not checked, then fund statements must be generated using the manual fund statement option.
Statement Interval - Determines how often fund advisors receive fund statements.
- This acts as a restriction when bulk producing fund statements in batch.
  - Example: If you select the quarterly fund statement interval, then the fund will only be selected for statement generation when you select the quarterly date option. It will be excluded if you select the annual time frame.
- Leaving this blank allows you to run a fund statement for all intervals.
  - During implementation, you can set if your fund advisors get statements only on one interval.
YTD Interval - If the fund Year-To-Date (YTD) fund statements needs to run on a different fiscal year than the community foundation's, this is where that can be set.
- Example: If the fund fiscal year end is June 30th and the foundation's is December 31st, then put +6 mons in the field.
  - "Mons" must be used for the data to be read.
Fund Statement Format - Designates which fund statement will be created.
- Create Fund Statement Format offers additional guidance.

Admin Fee Settings

Admin Fee Start Date - Date on which admin fees start processing on a fund.
Admin Fee Type - If you have created admin fees, check the boxes for the fee types that you want to apply to the fund.
Admin Fee Account - The account that will pay the admin fees associated with the fund.
- If blank, admin fees will be charged to the bank or investment account with the largest balance.
Admin Fee Group - Used to group fund balances together when calculating admin fees.
- Should only be used with tiered or laddered fees, where applicable.
Admin Fee Paid By - If another fund should pay this fund's admin fees, enter that fund here.
- During training, subfunds are discussed, but this should read as the parent fund.
Admin Fee Reduces Spendable - If checked, the admin fees associated with this fund will reduce the spendable balance of the fund.
- If not checked, the admin fee will reduce the Default/Earning balance.

Cash Management

Revshare Options - This setting has two options: exclude or give to.
- If "exclude" is checked, the fund will be excluded from calculations related to revenue share.
  - Exclude funds that should not get gains/losses/interest.
  - This is used particularly when a fund is closed mid-month to prevent "ghost" allocations at month-end.
- If "give to" is wanted, then select a fund from the drop-down menu that will receive this fund's revenue share portion.
- The default setting is that this is active, and the fund is getting an allocation based on how much this fund is invested.
Manage Cash - If checked, this enables Manage Cash functionality using balance swap providing the fund also has an investment strategy.
- During training, consider if you want transfers to be called for and if you want to use the Cash Management functionality. If so, then enable.
Investment Strategy - Tells the Cash Management functionality which asset accounts should hold the fund's balance.
Checking Account - The fund's default checking account.
- This is a required field.
- With online donations, Stripe receives the money and then transfers it to the linked deposit account. The system will show the fund receiving the money in the assigned checking accounting on the fund.
  - Assign the Stripe Deposit account as the Checking Account for all funds that will receive online donations.
- Regardless of what is set up as the default checking account, the system will always request the selection of the account where checks are deposited (Till process) and where checks are paid out (Accounts Payable).
- During implementation and before go live, decide what you want as the default checking account.
Min Checking Balance - The minimum amount that the fund should have in the associated checking account at any given time. This number is used by the Cash Management feature to suggest balance swaps.
Min Fund Balance - Prevents spending from the fund if the overall fund balance reaches the amount indicated in this field.
- This could be used as guardrails for flowthrough funds and protect against market fluctuations.
Override Balance Check - If enabled, this option will bypass the fund balance, spendable balance, and available cash system checks that are run when a user posts grants, scholarships, and vouchers. If these system checks are bypassed, users will no longer see the related warning message that the fund does not have enough balance to cover the transaction.
- This is a powerful setting and should be used with caution.

Fields Available on Created Funds

Fund Balance - Calculated balance of the fund available on a created fund.
- The calculation is Total Assets minus Total Liabilities equals Fund Balance.
Available Cash- Calculated field available on a created fund.
- The calculation is Asset Balance times the Percent Available for Cash equals Available for Cash.
Pending Grants - The amount of pending grants for the specific fund.
Create Date - Date that the fund was established at the foundation that can be viewed on a created fund.
- If this date does not align with the date that the fund was established, it can be edited and updated post-live in the system.
- The field can only be edited one-by-one, not in bulk.

Common Types of Funds Setup

Below are examples of fund settings based on common types of funds. Each foundation will select settings based on specific fund needs.

Name, Group, Checking Account, and Grant Approver are required fields for all funds.

Endowed Fund

An endowed fund is any fund that is tracking a principal balance. Principal balance is typically a restricted contribution to the fund that should be held for investment purposes.