Designated Fund
For more information or to contribute to the Rotary Club of Sedona Village’s Designated Fund, contact: Rotary Club of Sedona Village Charitable Fund at charfund@sedonavillagerotary.org.
To establish an endowment to support a nonprofit, charity or cause, contact Chelsea Buck-Leilich, Arizona Community Foundation of Sedona at cbuck@azfoundation.org.

The Rotary Club of Sedona Village Charitable Fund has announced the creation of the Sedona Village Rotary Designated Fund, a permanent endowed fund designed to provide long-term financial support for the club’s service initiatives.

During the Feb. 19 rotary meeting, Rotarian Rob Schaefer said the club, which was founded in 2018, needed a long-term way to fund its initiatives.

“I spent the last six months or so talking to financial organizations about setting up some sort of an endowment that would support the activities of the club for the future,” he said at the meeting. “As I went through organizations like Mariner and Schwab and Edward Jones and Fidelity. I talked to all these people, really nice people, but they said, basically, ‘if you haven’t got $2 million to start a fund we really can’t help.’”

The club didn’t have that kind of money to begin with, so he reached out to the Arizona Community Foundation of Sedona to see what the options were, and found them very reasonable.

“ACF was the least expensive [maintenance fee] by far: 1%,” he said. “OK, so for 1% of the value of the principal every year, ACF takes care of everything.”

The fund was launched with a $107,000 founding gift from Schaefer and his wife, Alix.

The fund, managed by ACF, is structured to preserve its principal while generating annual earnings. Each year, 75% of earnings will be distributed to the RCSV Charitable Fund, with the remaining 25% reinvested to grow the endowment, according to the press release.

“Some of you are probably saying, ‘Well, why didn’t we use a donor advised fund?’” Schaefer said at the meeting. “Donor advised funds are easier to set up. The problem is, every time you want $1 you have to go to whoever it is that’s running the fund and say, ‘Mother, may I?’”

He said this way, the club can still have the say-so on what the money is used for.

“The charitable fund president will be designated what they call a fund representative, and that is the person who can access all the books has the authority to talk to ACF if they have any questions about what’s going on with the designated fund,” Schaefer said. “The way it’s been written is, it flips from each charitable fund president to the next. It’s not a name, so we don’t even have to call them and tell them we’ve changed.”

Distributions from the fund are unrestricted, allowing the Rotary Club to respond to evolving community priorities, including youth programs, scholarships, community veterans projects and international projects.

The establishment of the endowment represents a significant step toward long-term sustainability for the club’s charitable work, reducing reliance on annual fundraising events and creating a lasting philanthropic resource.

“This endowment ensures that Rotary’s impact in our community continues well into the future,” Schaefer said in a Thursday, March 19, press release. “It creates a dependable funding source to support both local needs and global humanitarian efforts.”

Additional contributions to the Sedona Village Rotary Designated Fund are welcomed and encouraged.

ACF assists potential donors to establish endowments to support nonprofits, scholarships, charities and causes. To learn more, contact Chelsea Buck-Leilich, Arizona Community Foundation of Sedona at cbuck@azfoundation.org.