Designated Funds are component funds whose beneficiaries have been specified by the donor when the fund is established. The Pittsburgh Foundation assumes the oversight responsibility for ensuring that these funds are distributed as the donor intends. Many designated funds name a specific organization.

Designated Funds can be established by an individual or couple, a family, a business or any other group of people with shared charitable interests.

Designated Funds allow you to personally receive a tax deduction, and at the same time benefit your community by advising the Foundation of your charitable intents in perpetuity.

Designated Funds give donors the opportunity to work with the Foundation's professional program staff in determining immediate or long-term needs within our community. Staff members are knowledgeable about the needs and resources of our area and can help you evaluate proposals or explore new areas of grantmaking.

All grants from the fund are made in the name of the fund, in perpetuity. Donors who prefer anonymity can choose names that reflect their funds' charitable purposes.

Designated Fund Example

Henry P. Spilker (approx. b. 1906 - d.  1970), president of the Sterrit&Thomas Foundry Company in the Strip District and member of the Engineers’ Society of Western Pennsylvania,  chose to give monies each year for the purchase for braces for children in Allegheny County through the organization called the Home for Crippled  Children.  The Spilker family originated from German immigrants to Western Pennsylvania with a strong service ethic. 

The Spilker “loan” fund as it was called in the earlier part of the last century was administered by various civic organizations before the trustees chose to entrust its care to The Pittsburgh Foundation.  The Henry P. Spilker Crippled Children Brace Fund was established with The Pittsburgh Foundation in 1974.  One-third of the grants are designated specifically for the”Home for Crippled Children in Pittsburgh”. 

Mary Irwin Laughlin founded The Children's Institute in 1902 as the ‘Home for Crippled Children” to care for a six-year-old boy whose legs had been severed in a train accident. Later called The Rehabilitation Institute, The Hospital at The Children's Institute today is a leader in pediatric rehabilitation techniques and provides individualized treatment programs along a broad continuum of care: inpatient care, outpatient care, transitional and subacute care, home care.   As this organization has gone through different stages of administration and development over the years,  Mr. Spilker’s designated fund has been able to continue to give to this organization thanks to the ability of The Pittsburgh foundation to adapt the current times.

Since the original inception of the Spilker Fund in 1960, over $14 million has provided equipment for local children with physical challenges for the last 50 years.