The Fund Advisor Portal is meant to be used by any of these authorized decision maker(s) of a fund:

• original Donor(s)

• individual(s) appointed as Successors to the original Donor(s)

• appointed Committee Member(s), in the case of a committee

• individual(s) appointed as per their job role, in the case of an agency

The Donors, Successors, Committee or Staff Members described above are known as “Fund Advisors” in the Portal.

The Fund Advisor Portal is an online fund management tool for the Community Foundation of South Alabama (CFSA) Fund Advisors. The Portal offers you fast, efficient and convenient service as a value add-on to the support already provided to you by CFSA. The Portal is hosted online in a cloud environment on our website – giving you access to your information 24 hours a day.

The Online Fund Portal enables you to:

• review fund activity and balances

• recommend grants

• review, print or save fund activity reports

• support environmental efforts towards reducing paper and printing resources, as well as financial efforts to reduce mailing costs

You may visit the Portal as often as you wish to review your grant recommendation status or use any of the other tools available to you.

This site and your private information are fully secured with the latest technologies and practices. Any activity and documents are visible to you and CFSA staff only.

As always, anonymity is protected:

• An authorized Fund Advisor(s) for an anonymous fund, along with CFSA staff, are the only ones with Fund Advisor Portal access to fund information.

• Anonymous donations or grants made to a fund retain anonymity when reviewed by a Fund Advisor of the recipient fund. Only the date of the donation/grant, the donation/grant amount and purpose (if one is specified) is visible in the recipient Fund Advisor Portal.

If you are the authorized Fund Advisor, you will have access to the Portal.

• A Co-Fund Advisor is someone who shares decision-making authority with another person, such as a spouse, a committee member or another staff member. If you are a Co-Fund Advisor, both of you will have access to the Portal. However, each of you must have a different email to receive your login information. Our system does not permit multiple users to have the same email, and from a security perspective it is recommended you do not share login credentials.

• If you are a Fund Advisor acting on behalf of a committee or an agency, you are the person authorized to make decisions about grant recommendations on behalf of the committee or agency. The CFSA will consider your recommendations as being made with the committee’s or agency’s approval. To support your grant recommendation, you can attach committee minutes or other documentation, as required.

• Committees and Agency boards have the responsibility to notify the CFSA in a timely manner of a change in Fund Advisors. Once CFSA has written notice of the personnel change, it will transfer the Portal access rights to the new person(s) identified.

If you have a fund at the CFSA, contact us (donorservices@communityfoundationsa.org) to let us know you are interested in accessing the Online Fund Portal. We will email you a link to access your personal Portal. Click the link in your email and you will be prompted to create your own password to the Portal site. Once your password is created, the Login page appears, and you can enter your username (your username will be the same email address that received the access link) and password to log in. All login credentials are case sensitive.

Once you have set your password, you can log in at any time by visiting the Portal login on our website.

Check your spam or junk folder for an email from CFSA with the email “noreply@fcsuite.com”. Your Portal link is essential for setting up your password and entering the site. If it hasn’t arrived within an hour, please contact us so that we can resend the information you will need to get up-and-going. To contact us, do not click reply as we will not receive your email. Instead, use any of the following: 251-438-5591, email donorservices@communityfoundationsa.org.

The system will lock you out after five unsuccessful login attempts, but you can reset your password at any time on the Portal login page by clicking “Forgot Password”. Enter your username and click the “Reset Password” button. Your username is the email that we have on file as being your primary email. Instructions to reset your password will be sent to your primary email address on file. If you still need assistance, please contact us (donorservices@communityfoundationsa.org) or call 251-438-5591.

The Portal is a cloud-based system which means it has full compatibility on a wide-range of devices and browsers. The Google Chrome browser is more effective than Internet Explorer or Edge.

Balances are confirmed to you each fiscal year, typically by early November. The Portal uses the term “Available to Spend” to describe the amount that is available to distribute during the fiscal year (October 1 – September 30). As soon as your balances are confirmed and published, you can use the Portal to make your grant recommendations.

There are four reasons why you cannot make an online grant recommendation:

1. The balances have not yet been confirmed to you.

2. The fund you are interacting with is a Designated Fund. Because the fund already provides stable and lasting support to a specific registered charity(s) and/or qualified donor(s) with a pre-determined amount or percentage, the ability to make a grant recommendation is not needed.

3. The grant amount entered is less than $250.00.

4. Your fund may not be ready for Grant Recommendations: Contact CFSA staff for more information.

A fund must maintain a $5,000 balance prior to being eligible to grant. If an advisor for a non-endowed fund desires to close the fund and make a final distribution(s), please contact CFSA to discuss the process.

If the available to spend amount is not distributed by the end of the fiscal year, the amount is returned to the fund balance to contribute to its growth and be used to calculate the next fiscal year’s available to spend amount.

The Portal posts the grant status at each stage of the grant recommendation. Grant recommendations are typically processed within 10 business days following receipt of your recommendation.

Yes, absolutely! Click the “Donate” tab within the Portal or click on the “Donate Now” button on the CFSA website home page.

If you want to donate online to your specific fund, use the search bar at the top of the page to find and select your fund.

Please remember that:

• Donations appear on your Fund Donations page when CFSA has processed the transaction.

• During a fiscal year, donations to an existing endowed fund, online or otherwise, will not impact the current fiscal year’s available to spend amount; however, will increase the amount to be used for the available to spend calculations for the next fiscal year.

Wire transfers, stock donations and cheque donations are processed through the CFSA office. For stock or wire transfer instructions, please contact us.