The Philanthropy Index is a step-by-step process for measuring your rural community's potential for creating a charitable fund. It uses "hard" data about your community, compiled from national sources like the Internal Revenue Service and the Census Bureau, to create an objective measure of the financial wealth that exists within households and businesses within your community. It also poses a number of subjective questions for leaders in your community to answer that measure the level of community involvement from individuals and businesses in your community and the likelihood that you will be able to engage community members in creating a charitable fund.

For a step-by-step overview of the process, click here.

Here's what you'll need to get started:

• An interest in creating a charitable fund that can benefit your community for years to come.
• A willingness  to order the Philanthropy Index Guidebook, Workbook and Data Report for your community.
• A broadly representative group of community leaders who are willing to spend some time understanding data and answering direct questions about your community.