Successful Hollywood agent Mitchell T. Kaplan-whose agency represents the creators and/or executive producers of such award-winning television shows as "Desperate Housewives," "Frasier," "Seinfeld" and "Murphy Brown"-set up The Kaplan-Jones Family Trust Donor Advised Fund at The Foundation in 1998. Year after year, he and his wife Marilyn Jones support a long list of their favorite charities in both the Jewish community and the community at large, including Jewish Family Service, the Jewish Federation, Weizmann Institute of Science, the Alliance for Children's Rights, ACLU Foundation, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Stroke Association of Southern California, Planned Parenthood and KPCC/National Public Radio. A Donor Advised Fund enables them to maintain their generous support with ease.

"Like many people, we had been making charitable contributions on our own for years. We would write separate checks to lots of different organizations and try to keep track of them all. Then, one year, our accountant advised us to look into the Jewish Community Foundation. He said they were experts in charitable giving and could show us a simpler way to do it. Now, through our Donor Advised Fund, one transaction takes care of all our giving for the entire year. We transfer appreciated securities to The Foundation, and they handle the rest, making charitable distributions on our behalf to a list of charities that we have recommended. It's flexible-we can change or add to our list at any time-and we can access our fund online to keep track of recent activity. Plus, we get a great charitable tax deduction. So it's good for us, and good for the organizations we support. We also like knowing that by making our donations through The Foundation, we're helping them build permanent charitable resources for the community."

Marilyn Jones and Mitchell T. Kaplan