For professional advisors
Your client gives. You keep managing.
When a client moves charitable assets to a national donor-advised fund sponsor, those assets usually leave your management. Through Desert Community Foundation’s Trusted Advisors Program, they do not.
The Trusted Advisors Program
Your client establishes a charitable fund with the Foundation, and you continue to manage the charitable dollars. We take on the charitable vehicle — the compliance, the due diligence, the grant administration, the recordkeeping. You keep the client relationship and the assets under management.
It is our proprietary program, and it exists for a straightforward reason: charitable intent should not cost an advisor the relationship they have spent years building.
Who qualifies
$500,000+Clients with $500,000 or more to establish a charitable fund or foundation, who wish to keep their own trusted financial advisor managing the charitable dollars.
How it works
- Your client recommends you to Desert Community Foundation.
- The fund is established with an initial irrevocable contribution of $500,000 or more.
- Grantmaking begins — your client recommends grants to 501(c)(3) organizations anywhere in the United States, as frequently as they wish.
What you keep · what we take on
You keep
- The client relationship
- Investment management of the charitable assets
- Assets under management
- Your role in your client’s full financial picture
We take on
- The charitable vehicle and its governance
- Due diligence on every recipient organization
- Grant administration and disbursement
- Compliance, filings and recordkeeping
- Gift receipting and reporting
Why a community foundation
A national sponsor can hold your client’s charitable assets. It cannot tell them which organization in Indio is actually doing the work.
We have served the Coachella Valley since 1999, and we know the organizations here — not from a database, but from working alongside them. Desert Community Foundation founded CV Giving Day, the Valley’s annual community-wide day of giving.
In 2026, CV Giving Day raised $1,008,700 for 173 local nonprofits — with 99.75% of the funds raised passing through to those organizations.
For a client who wants their giving to mean something specific and local, that knowledge is the product. It is also the part that cannot be replicated by a call centre.
Start a conversation
We are glad to talk through a specific client situation, in confidence and without obligation.
Mary Panesar, Executive Director
mpanesar@desertfoundation.org · (760) 674-9080Desert Community Foundation · 75-105 Merle Drive, Suite 300, Palm Desert, CA 92211 · A 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, EIN 95-4725924, serving the Coachella Valley since 1999.
© 1999-2026 Desert Community Foundation
Desert Community Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization EIN 95-4725924
since 1999, serving the local communities of: palm springs, desert hot springs, thousand palms, cathedral city, rancho mirage, palm desert, bermuda dunes, indian wells, la quinta, indio, coachella, thermal, mecca & oasis
made with 💚 in palm desert, california
ma(760) 674-9080 desertfoundation.org