Donor Portrait

Lota Zoth and Cary Corthron are retired. Well, sort of. Since retiring from their careers, the married couple has devoted much of their time to volunteering and serving people. When they decided to create a donor-advised fund with the Community Foundation, they chose a fitting name for the fund.

“We named it Inspired Services, because it is our passion, in the sunset of our professional lives, to provide inspired services, primarily in the form of volunteering in various ways to aid underprivileged individuals and families,” Lota said.

Since establishing the fund in December 2019, the Inspired Services fund has made around 50 grants to various charitable organizations. Many of those grants were during Abilene Gives, a 24-hour day of giving CFA hosts to raise money for local nonprofits.

Donor-advised fundholders can recommend grants from their funds throughout the year to the causes they care about. They can even make grants to organizations participating in special giving opportunities like Abilene Gives and CFA’s discretionary grant cycles.

“Grantmaking has been very simple and efficient, and we are excited about future grantmaking,” said Lota.

Lota says establishing a Donor-Advised fund (DAF) at CFA accomplishes two goals.

“The DAF itself allows us to provide financial assistance to those who are in need through contributions to nonprofit organizations whose missions align with our vision of inspired services. Putting our DAF at the CFA has been a tremendously simple method for us to give to the nonprofit community.”

The endowment fund is not the only way Lota and Cary live out their passion for inspired services. Lota serves as the volunteer executive director and Cary is the volunteer maintenance and ranch manager for Camp Able, a local nonprofit dedicated to providing equine therapy for people with special needs and sanctuary to unwanted or neglected horses.

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