Stage 4:  Educate and Decide

After you have scored your Philanthropy Index, your leadership team will have to ask itself the key question:  Does it make sense to proceed with the work of building a charitable fund of assets that can be a resource for the entire community? It is a decision that only you as leaders of your community can make.

Your team may want to talk with key members of the community before making this decision. You may also want to undertake more research on the Local Knowledge questions from the Index Workbook.

Remember that you are not deciding what kind of organization you need for your charitable fund. Nor are you setting fundraising goals, or deciding what projects need funding. At this point you are simply deciding whether to go forward and establish an organization.