Restricted Donations

When you make a restricted donation, you specify not only the amount of your donation but also how it will be spent. The instructions that you give when you make the donation restrict the purposes for which the Foundation can use your donation. This allows you to put your money right where you think it is needed. It permits you to direct the donation to something that matters importantly to you. Looked at from another perspective, it limits the Foundation in determining how to meet the changing needs of the people it serves.

Restrictions can be quite broad ("... for scholarships"), more narrow ("... for the performing arts"), or even more narrow ("... for girls' athletics" or "... for the endowment").

Note that your restriction lasts until the donation is exhausted or until the Foundation goes out of business. That is, if the Foundation dissolves for some reason, the restricted fund must be transferred to another nonprofit which can honor the restriction.

All of this must be within reason, of course. Suppose you made a donation and restricted it to "college scholarships for veterans of World War II." At some point that becomes an unreasonable constraint. Thus if at some point the Board determines that meeting your restriction is no longer a reasonable goal, then the Board can use its own discretion to redirect the donation. In the example cited, that might releasing the restriction and re-directing the donation more broadly to "scholarships for veterans".

For these reasons, the Foundation suggests that people restrict their donations only when the circumstances seem to call for it. A restricted donation is the exception, not the rule.

To make a donation now, click on the GiveMN button to the right. To mail in a donation, click here to get a form you can print, complete, and mail in.

For more information about making a restricted donation, you can send an email to the Foundation office or send a letter to

South High Foundation
ATTN: Donations
3131 19th Ave S
Minneapolis MN 55407