October 12, 2004,

Big Sky Weekly
September 29, 2004


Matching Grant for the Big Sky Community Park !

Just like “many hands make light work”, cooperation of organizations can work wonders.

The Big Sky Rotary Club just got a grant from the Bozeman Area Community Foundation that will multiply local donations for our community park. Here’s how it works: The Rotary Club pledged to raise money to improve the park, such as adding a decorative, functional fence for the children’s playground. The community foundation then approved a $500 award to be used for incentive matching of the donations to be raised by the club. The resulting total will then be used as the Club applies to have that sum again matched by the Rotary International Foundation. Thus a local dollar contributed will likely turn into about four dollars of park improvement. Not a bad return on investment! Congratulations to our energetic Rotary club.

After Rotarian Kirk Digge accepted the award, the Bozeman Area Community Foundation founder Stephen R. Hample explained how money goes into the Foundation’s endowment to make such awards possible. He explained how a $10,000 gift could be structured as a “charitable gift annuity” for maximum tax advantage. As one example, a donor’s $10,000 check could be split into two parts: half for retirement income paid back to the donor and half added to a permanent endowment account to support charitable projects (on which larger donors may advise). In doing so, the theoretical donor would get a Montana income tax saving of $2,000 and a federal tax saving of about $1,500. The result is a net actual cost to the donor of only about $1,500 because the donor essentially redirects $3,500 from taxes into supporting the community.

Hample is a certified financial planner, a registered representative of KMS Financial Services, Inc. and a long time area resident, yet he realized people might find his theoretical example hard to believe. Therefore, at the end of the meeting he pulled out his checkbook, wrote a $10,000 check to the Foundation, and made the example real.

Steve’s name may be familiar to area residents because of his long time support of Yellowstone Public Radio and his role as the area’s Rotary Assistant District Governor when a Big Sky Rotary Club was suggested.