Endowment Fund

Barn tour in Cadillac region

MBPN traveling exhibit at conferences

Preserving Our Heritage – Investing in Our Future

The Michigan Barn Preservation Network has established an endowment fund at the Capital Region Community Foundation. Both current and deferred gifts to this endowment can provide you with a tax reduction and help ensure that the Michigan Barn Preservation Network will benefit generations to come.

Gifts to the Endowment Fun will secure our future by expanding our ability to:

  • Demonstrate, educate and promote best practices in barn preservation
  • Enhance and increase statewide outreach and communication, and
  • Strengthen MBPN’s infrastructure and effectiveness

We invite you to help support our work! Our goal is an endowment fund total of at least $500,000.

Contact our treasurer, Clare Koenigsknecht, at [email protected]


Teamwork & Timbers program for youth

How Does an Endowment Work?

When someone makes a gift to the MBPN Endowment Fund it is permanently invested to grow over time. Earnings from the fund are used to support the mission and outreach of MBPN.

Why make an endowed gift?

Because endowments are permanent, the Fund benefits our mission and our community forever.  Endowments are invested for growth over time, and while the principal is never used, earnings are available to MBPN each year for the important work of our organization. Endowments provide a dependable, perpetual source of funding.


Learning about barn preservation from experts

Tax Considerations

MBPN is a 501 ©3 charitable organization. Your donation to our endowment fund may reduce your tax obligation.

If you are 70 ½ or older, an IRA charitable gift roll-over to a charity (up to $100,000) is free from federal income tax. Also known as a Qualified Charitable Distribution, an IRA rollover gift qualifies for your required minimum distribution, permitting you to lower your income and taxes for the year while supporting a 501 ©3 charity or nonprofit organization.

Gifts to us or to the Capital Region Community Foundation in our name are tax-exempt. Contributions of appreciated property can be deducted at their full market value. Appreciated assets given to a fund at the Community Foundation are free of capital gains taxes. No tax is owed on the growth of assets in our endowment fund.

Always review tax advantages with your accountant and attorney when considering charitable giving.


The Capital Region Community Foundation manages the MBPN Endowment Fund along with 400 other charitable funds created by individuals, families, businesses and organizations.

Having the MBPN Endowment Fund at the Community Foundation gives donors confidence that their gifts will be well managed financially, with a consistent focus on growth of principal and generation of income for our use.

Address: Capital Region Community Foundation, 330 Marshall St, Suite 300, Lansing, MI 48912

Contact the Foundation at (517) 272-2870. More information at: https://ourcommunity.org/


The Michigan Barn Preservation Network, founded in 1995, is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization, qualified under Section 170 of the Internal Revenue Service Code to receive gifts, grants, and contributions which are deductible for United States federal income tax purposes.

For more information about making a direct gift to MBPN or through the Capital Region Community Foundation, contact our treasurer, Clare Koenigsknecht, at (989) 593-2351 or Julie Avery, Endowment Chair, at (517) 927-1958.

Click to print out MBPN Endowment flier and Pledge Form.