Thanks to the generosity of people like you, Community Hospice can offer care and services to those in our community that are terminally ill. We provide end-of-life care to over 170 patients and their families daily, regardless of their financial situation.

Community Hospice, Inc. and Community Hospice Foundation are 501(c) [3] nonprofit charitable organizations. Contributions are tax deductible in accordance with Federal Internal Revenue Service and California State Franchise Tax Board regulations. Donors should contact their tax advisor about the tax deductibility of gifts.

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In 2005 Community Hospice Foundation launched an endowment campaign to support Community Hospice's future needs and ensure its financial stability for decades to come. The endowment will provide Community Hospice with the budgetary cushion needed to meet unexpected challenges and expenses.

Your endowment gift will help Community Hospice provide the best quality care to future generations of terminally ill patients and their families and leave a legacy that will live on indefinitely.

Five areas we are focusing our efforts:

Supporting Clinical Services

The Challenge: The nursing shortage causes nursing wages to inflate as hospitals, medical centers, and Community Hospice all compete for the same limited pool of qualified candidates. It also takes a special level of experience to qualify as a hospice nurse. This increases our challenge in finding the best nurses for our hospice patients.

How You Can Help: Endowment contributions will help us recruit the very best nurses to hospice care, help Community Hospice retain the quality nurses we currently have, and offer quality services to patients and their families whenever they need it. It will also allow us to offer ongoing education and competitive salaries for our medical staff, to continue to provide the level of quality care to all patients regardless of their ability to pay.

Durable Medical Equipment

The Challenge: Medicare requires that Community Hospice provides our patients with durable medical equipment like wheelchairs, medical beds and walkers. A few years ago Community Hospice noticed a rise in medical equipment cost and a decrease in the number of local medical equipment suppliers. We started our own durable medical equipment program to offset these increases and keep costs reasonable for our patients.

How You Can Help: A gift to Community Hospice's endowment ensures our patients will continue to have needed equipment at a reasonable cost. Interest from the endowment will help increase our supply of equipment and meet future needs as patient numbers grow.

Grief & Bereavement Services

The Challenge: For those grieving and in need, Community Hospice provides support groups, resource materials, workshops, individual and phone support. This service is offered to anyone in the community who requests it and is also offered for up to twelve months for families of hospice patients.

How You Can Help: An endowment gift to Community Hospice will allow us to continue to reaching children and adults in need. It is a way of reaching out to dry the tears of a crying child or parent who has experienced a loss in their life.

Alexander Cohen Hospice House

The Challenge: The Alexander Cohen Hospice House opened its doors in 2005. This beautiful residential facility was designed to meet the needs of hospice patients with symptom management issues requiring 24-hour nursing care. Private insurance and Medicare sources do not reimburse us for the full cost of caring for those at the Hospice House, but we do not turn away individuals because of their inability to pay. We provide the best quality care for our patients.

How You Can Help: Your generous gift to Community Hospice's endowment ensures that there is always a home for our patients and a place of respite for their families.

Haig and Isabel Berberian Patient Services Center

The Challenge: Our Haig and Isabel Berberian Patient Services Center , which opened in 2005, provides a place for our patient care teams, staff and volunteers to collectively carry out the mission of Community Hospice. Our support groups and Friends of Hospice also meet here. The Berberian Center was designed to meet the current and future needs of our community.

How You Can Help: The heart of Community Hospice's mission is to serve you and your family during your greatest time of need. Your gift will allow us to continue our focus on quality, compassionate care, regardless of state and national economic downturn in the future.

Community Hospice believes as much in giving back to our donors as about what they give to us. Our hope is to connect the gift and what it makes possible with what is special in the giver.

The following is a list of partial naming opportunities available at the Haig and Isabel Berberian Patient Services Center , for donors who make outright or endowed gifts.

The following is a list of partial naming opportunities available at the Alexander Cohen Hospice House , for donors who make outright or endowed gifts.

Become a Member of Legacy Leaders

Community Hospice appreciates the generosity of those in the community who have chosen to make a legacy to our community through their thoughtfully planned gift. To honor these individuals and promote the value of this kind of gift among others contemplating one, we have formed Legacy Leaders.

We send quarterly mailings to these individuals, which includes a copy of our Hospice Happenings newsletter and a Save the Date reminder of upcoming events. Additionally, we keep in touch with these individuals with a copy of our Annual Report. No meetings are held, but if members wish to tour either our Haig and Isabel Berberian Patient Services Center or the Alexander Cohen Hospice House, tours are available.

Members can educate themselves with information about planned gifts by requesting a copy of our Options for Giving brochure, by emailing us at carole.richard@hospiceheart.org or calling (209) 578-6375.

Ways to Give

You can play an active role in helping your loved ones and others during their time of greatest need by making a gift to Community Hospice's endowment. Large or small, every gift counts.

There are many ways to give. You may give gifts of cash, land, stocks, insurance, bonds, IRA's, annuities or personal property such as cars, boats, or jewelry.

There are also special ways to give your gift that can have beneficial tax and financial benefits to you. Although each person's situation is unique, these are some ways other Community Hospice donors have given:

Memorial Giving – Making a Donation

The Memorial Giving Program allows donors the opportunity to remember family or friends by a memorial or tribute gift. A memorial gift honors a loved one who has passed away or a gift may be made in honor of anyone that a donor wishes to recognize. Gifts in memory or honor of someone help Community Hospice to continue to provide quality care to our patients during the year.

Community Hospice sends an acknowledgement to both the donor and the family or individual being recognized, notifying them of your thoughtful gift. The amount is not disclosed. You may donate in the following ways:

Other Ways of Giving

If you wish to make a donation of stock or other assets , please call Carole Richard , JD, CFRE, at (209) 578-6370.

A gift of cash or other assets of $5,000 or more helps provide care for up to a month for a patient. We honor a donor with a gift of this amount or more by special recognition at either our Haig and Isabel Berberian Patient Services Center or our Alexander Cohen Hospice House. We also offer a special tour and lunch with our Chief Executive Officer.

Wills: Donors can leave a gift to Community Hospice in their wills. This can be done by leaving tangible property such as a boat, home or car. It can be a cash gift of a specified amount, or it can be a percentage of your estate (10% for example).

Charitable Remainder Trusts: These trusts allow the donor or other beneficiaries to receive an income. At the end of a specified period of time, proceeds of the trust go to the non-profit organization (Community Hospice). One benefit of this type of gift includes a tax deduction in the year the trust was formed. This also provides the flexibility for the donor or designated beneficiaries to receive income for the life or for a period of years. Common examples of these trusts are annuity trusts or unitrusts.

Charitable Lead Trusts: Unlike remainder trusts, lead trusts provide Community Hospice with a fixed income for a specified period of time and then the balance goes to the donor's designated beneficiaries.

Leaving Your Legacy

Whatever method you choose, and whatever size and kind of gift you make, your generosity is important to us. You play an important role in the growth and success of Community Hospice. More importantly, you help to touch another's life during a difficult time.

To honor your commitment to us, we offer a variety of naming opportunities at our Haig and Isabel Berberian Patient Services Center and the Alexander Cohen Hospice House. For more information, please contact the Community Hospice Foundation at (209) 578-6370.