Check out our 2026 Q3 Newsletter
Who Takes Care of It After I’m Gone?
Not long ago, a fundholder who has given through Foothills Community Foundation for years asked me something I didn’t expect. The question wasn’t about the balance in the fund. It was about the future: who looks after this when I’m no longer here?
More donors are asking it than you might think. And most of them, like most generous people, haven’t yet put an answer in writing. That isn’t for lack of caring. Usually no one has asked, and the paperwork feels like something for someday.
Someday Is Closer Than It Looks
A Donor Advised Fund at the Foundation can be named as a beneficiary in a will, a living trust, a retirement account, or a life insurance policy. That one step turns a fund into a legacy that keeps making grants long after the person who started it.
From there, the real decision is who carries your giving forward. Some donors name a successor advisor: a son or daughter, a close friend, someone who shares their values and understands why these causes mattered. Others convert their fund into a Designated Fund, so it supports the same organizations indefinitely, with no successor needed. Either path keeps your intentions intact.
The Foundation itself began exactly this way. In 1999, William Law Watkins’s bequest became the founding gift that made Foothills Community Foundation possible. Today the William Law Watkins Legacy Society carries his name forward, honoring every donor who has included their fund in their estate plans.
If you’ve been meaning to have this conversation, I would welcome it. It costs nothing, and it stays confidential.
News from the Foundation
A field that has come of age. The first community foundation was created in Cleveland in 1914. Today roughly 909 serve nearly every corner of the country, holding $177.2 billion in assets, up 12% since 2023. In his note this quarter, President Dean Woods writes that Foothills Community Foundation is maturing right alongside the field: more component funds, more grants, and more fundholders adding to their funds during their lifetimes and through their estates. Total assets reached $64,312,834 as of August 31, 2026 (unaudited), up from $45,993,114 reported in our last annual figures.
Welcoming Toni Hicks. Toni joined the Foundation in August as Director of Accounting and Finance. She spent the past ten years as Operations Director for the United Way of Anderson County. An Anderson resident for more than thirty years, she lives near downtown with her family and believes in neighbors helping neighbors. Reach her at [email protected].
A new role for Mary Pickens. Mary has been promoted to Vice President. An Anderson native and Duke graduate, she came home after twenty years in the Midwest and joined the Foundation in January 2024. She will continue her work with fundholders, donors, advisors, and community partners.
Grant notifications now arrive by email. To keep administrative costs down, grant notifications are now sent electronically. Grants also appear on quarterly statements and in the Fundholder Portal. Please make sure we have your current email address.
To Do Good Forever
William Law Watkins never saw the Foundation his gift created. Twenty seven years later, his generosity is still at work in Anderson, Oconee, and Pickens Counties. That is the promise of a fund here: the causes you love, cared for by people who understand them, for generations to come.
Mary R. Pickens, Vice President
To talk about your own plans, call 864.222.9096 or email [email protected].
Click on the link to read the full newsletter: 2026 Q3 Newsletter