Forever Blue

Endowment Program

A Centennial Investment to Secure the Heart of FFA

Your investment can ensure Kentucky FFA remains Forever Blue.

The Forever Blue Endowment Program is our commitment to sustainable philanthropy and to the belief that every Kentucky FFA chapter deserves long-term, dependable support. Today, tomorrow, and 100 years from now.

Across the Commonwealth, more than 27,000 FFA members are learning how to lead with integrity, work with purpose, and serve their communities. Through the Kentucky FFA Association, students gain far more than agricultural knowledge. They develop confidence, public speaking skills, financial literacy, and a deep understanding of service.

$10,000 is required for a chapter to establish a Forever Blue Endowment. This can come from one gift or a combination of gifts of any size. After investment, chapters will receive an
annual endowment distribution of 5 percent of the fund.

If you are a donor ready to establish an endowment, contact Sheldon.McKinney@kyffa.org. To make a gift to an established endowment, make a gift to the KY FFA Foundation and let us know in the memo or notes (online) that it’s for a chapter endowment.

The Challenge

Each FFA chapter in Kentucky operates in its own ever-changing environment.

The need for premier leadership, personal growth, and career success has never been greater. Students are hungry for opportunity. Yet sometimes factors beyond their control stand between ag teachers and what their students truly need.

The Kentucky FFA Foundation exists to ensure those opportunities are not limited by zip code, school budget, or economic uncertainty.

Forever Blue Endowment Program

Challenges facing FFA chapters:

  • School funding fluctuates
  • Communities experience economic shifts
  • Teachers and school administrators change

The Centennial Solution

Establish 100 FFA Endowment funds to support local chapters

A Forever Blue endowment is a perpetual source of income that ensures students in a local FFA chapter have the opportunity to thrive for generations.

Annual fundraising meets immediate needs, endowment funding secures the future.

Your endowment will provide:

  • Stability in economic downturns
  • Predictable annual distributions
  • Long-term fiscal strength
  • Donor legacy and recognition
  • Local chapter sustainability

Earnings can support:

  • Any FFA member opportunity where finances could be a barrier
  • Student leadership conferences and travel
  • Supervised Agricultural Experiences (SAEs)
  • Scholarships and awards

The Forever Blue Endowment Program establishes permanent, invested funds that generate annual earnings to support local FFA chapters in perpetuity.

How it Works

An endowed fund can impact students for decades to come, long after the original gift has been made.

Step 1:

Contributions are made to the Kentucky FFA Foundation.

Step 2:

The principal is invested and grows and earns interest.

Step 3:

A portion of the interest earnings are distributed to the selected need.

Step 4:

Interest earnings add to the principal and the endowment continues to grow – forever.

Who Can Help?

Your investment can ensure Kentucky FFA remains Forever Blue.

Alumni who want to give back to the chapter that shaped them

Families who believe in agricultural education

Agribusiness leaders investing in workforce development

Communities seeking sustainable youth leadership pipelines

From Uncertainty to Opportunity Thanks to

Forever Blue

Lyon County FFA’s Forever Blue endowment, established in 2021, has around $190,000 from 33 donors. This equates an annual distribution of $9,500.

“When I was hired, our FFA Chapter funding was running on fumes. Every trip, contest, and leadership event required stretching every dollar and constantly searching for additional support.

The Forever Blue Endowment has truly changed that reality for our chapter. Because of this investment, Lyon County FFA members now have consistent access to leadership conferences, career development events, and hands-on agricultural experiences that prepare them for life beyond high school.

This endowment doesn’t just fund activities; it creates opportunities for my students to gain valuable real world experience through FFA, building confidence, skills, and a vision for their future.”

Wyatt Wood, Lyon County Agriculture Teacher

“Our Forever Blue endowment has opened doors for our students to travel to many leadership events and conferences, like Washington Leadership Conference. Being in a small, poor community, and being given the opportunity to see a world that’s bigger than all of us, most of them flying on a plane for the first time, seeing people (from protesters to congressmen) fight for what they believe is best for our country, it’s all so important. It’s important to a person’s own being and identity, but it’s also so important for our community.

This endowment fund lets our high schoolers, our real Lincoln County citizens, be inspired and educated. Whether this inspiration and education lead them to be policy makers or just more informed citizens, Lincoln County is so much better with these students having been. We can already see it happening.”

Cori Quesenberry, Lincoln County Agriculture Teacher

“My Forever Blue endowment has provided me with a second family.

The FFA advisors, the students and their families and the alumni are all now an integral part of my life and add so much meaning and substance to my retirement.

Nothing keeps you young like
mentoring young people.”

Nick Canter, Forever Blue Donor

Explore your Giving Options

If you are interested in making a gift to the Kentucky FFA Foundation, you have many options for making an impact that best fits your unique situation.

Gifts of Cash

The majority of gifts to the Kentucky FFA Foundation are in the form of cash.

If you itemize your tax deductions, you may claim as a charitable deduction a cash gift of up to 50 percent of your adjusted gross income.

Gifts of Securities

Gifts of appreciated securities can provide special tax advantages: you maycompletely avoid capital gains taxes; and the fair market value of the stock may be claimed as a charitable deduction on your income tax, up to 30 percent of adjusted gross income for those who itemize, with a five-year carryover.

The simplest way to make a gift of stock is to instruct your broker or banker to transfer it to the Kentucky FFA Foundation. The broker should then contact the Kentucky FFA Foundation for further instructions.

Give from an IRA or Retirement Account

A Qualified Charitable Distribution (QCD) allows individuals aged 70.5 or older to transfer up to $111,000 (in 2025) annually from an IRA directly to a qualified charity, satisfying the Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) without increasing taxable income. This tax-efficient method avoids income tax on the withdrawal, unlike taking the cash and donating it.

Gifts of Life Insurance

When you name the Kentucky FFA Foundation as the owner and sole
beneficiary of a life insurance policy, you receive an immediate income tax charitable deduction for the lesser of the policy’s fair market value or the net premiums paid. Premiums you pay later are also tax deductible.

Memorial and Honor Gifts

You may designate gifts to remember or honor a relative or friend for a specific purpose, or you may allow the Foundation to use such gifts for general support. Acknowledgment will be made to the family of the deceased if the name and address of the closest survivor is provided.

Wills

The most common form of an estate gift to the Kentucky FFA Foundation is a specific bequest in a will. You should arrange to draft your will with your attorney by adding this one sentence: “I give to Kentucky Future Farmers of America Foundation, Inc., a nonprofit corporation currently located at PO Box 8, Flemingsburg, KY
41041, or its successor thereto, [percentage/sum] for its unrestricted use and purpose.”

Estate and Planned Gifts

Although outright gifts provide valuable support for current programs, estate giving provides substantial support for future programs. This form of giving is particularly suitable if you desire to make a larger gift through your estate rather than in your lifetime. The allowable estate tax deduction for charitable gifts remain unlimited under the new tax laws.

Gifts of Real Estate

Gifts of homes, farms, and other real property can receive the same tax treatment as gifts of securities: no capital gains tax plus deductibility at fair market value. If this is appealing to you, please make plans to discuss intent and restrictions with the Kentucky FFA Foundation.

Matching Gifts

Some are able to increase their gift to the Kentucky FFA Foundation by employer matching. If your employer has such a program, your gift may be multiplied once, twice, or even three times.