How to Invest in ICPF

The International Corrugated Packaging Foundation (ICPF) is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt, nonprofit educational foundation that is reliant on donations and contributions to conduct its mission of generating a stream of increasingly qualified students to enter the corrugated packaging and display industry. The fourth quarter is a perfect time for individual firms and executives to focus on how to join the many others who make annual contributions to support and maintain ICPF’s many initiatives. Following are the numerous ways you can support our work for the future of the industry.

Year-End Tax Planning Benefits

This quarter you can make a gift that will assist ICPF in its initiatives and provide you additional tax benefits. Following are several examples of donations to ICPF that, in turn, will help support the future of the industry. Check with your tax adviser for verification on specifics.

• Make a gift of appreciated property (including stocks, bonds, mutual funds, art, real estate, collectibles) and get a tax deduction for the current market value of the asset (up to applicable IRS limits).
• Participate in ICPF’s annual Holiday Weekend in New York. Half of the registration fee is fully tax-deductible as a donation to ICPF. Additional expenses for the weekend are usually tax-deductible for your company as well.
• Set up a Gift Annuity that will give you and your spouse guaranteed income for life, and then give ICPF the appreciated asset.
• Create a Unitrust to ensure lifetime income with inflation protection.
• Use a Charitable Lead Trust to give ICPF annual income now, and then return the total asset to your children or grandchildren when your estate is settled.
• Name ICPF as the beneficiary of your IRA or 401(k) plan.
• Transfer ownership of a life insurance policy to ICPF. Name the Foundation as the beneficiary. If the policy is paid in full, you get a proportional deduction. If there is an annual premium to be paid, you make a contribution to ICPF to pay the premium, and you get the annual deduction for the dollar amount of the premium.
• Add a codicil to your will to make a specific bequest to ICPF. You can choose a set dollar amount, one specific asset, or a percentage of the total asset.

Consider a Contribution of Time or Surplus Equipment

There are additional ways to get involved and help support ICPF’s mission and initiatives. You can donate surplus CAD tables or corrugated testing equipment to ICPF for college use; serve as a speaker, adviser, or mentor at one of ICPF’s university partners; participate in an ICPF student dialogue dinner; become a corporate partner; serve as one of the rotating industry speakers at ICPF’s annual Careers in Corrugated Packaging & Display Teleconference; nominate a deserving executive to ICPF’s Circle of Distinguished Leaders; participate or otherwise support ICPF’s annual fundraising event; or directly donate to ICPF. All are tax-deductible. It is through your help that ICPF continues to expand its outreach to educate and influence the career decisions of talented, upcoming graduates from ICPF’s partner universities and colleges.

Become an ICPF Corporate Partner

ICPF corporate partners are independent corrugated manufacturers, integrated manufacturers, and suppliers to the industry. ICPF Corporate Partners make predetermined pledges to support ICPF’s mission.

Pledge levels to become a partner are based upon size of company, with similarly sized companies requested to make similarly sized pledges. Pledges for a corrugated manufacturer begin at $50,000, and those for supplier companies begin at $100,000. The pledge can be paid over time, ranging from one to 10 years. If you decide to make a pledge this quarter, you can postpone the initial pledge installment to 2017 if preferred. Upon your corporate commitment by letter (please contact ICPF for a sample), ICPF would prepare a release for the trade press announcing your firm as a new ICPF Partner, and the pledge to which you have committed. You additionally have immediate access to ICPF’s career portal and résumé bank for recruiting new and upcoming graduates to your firm.

Why Invest in ICPF?

ICPF is committed to working with faculty and expanding its outreach to colleges, universities, high schools, and their talented students in order to educate and encourage them to consider the many careers available in the corrugated packaging and displays industry. ICPF’s work, in large part, is enabled by financial and other support provided by individual companies that will benefit from ICPF’s initiatives. Through industry support, ICPF has made significant strides. To illustrate a cross section of its initiatives, ICPF has:

• Placed more than $11.5 million in corrugated equipment in colleges and universities to educate students in concepts and skills to better prepare them for a career in the industry.
• Jump-started, created, or expanded 19 corrugated packaging programs at U.S. colleges and universities in just the past 10 years.
• Established formal partnerships with more than 25 colleges and universities across North America.
• Conducted annual interactive Careers in Corrugated Packaging & Displays Teleconferences to bring the latest developments in the industry to students and faculty on campuses throughout North America. Through the required preparation, the Teleconference enables ICPF to maintain ongoing contact with faculty across the country and is successful in annually promoting corrugated careers to the more than 400 students from the 15–20 campuses that participate each year.
• Created the Careers in Corrugated Packaging & Displays Network that annually has 700–1,100 students and upcoming graduates who have joined specifically to pursue student internships and careers in the corrugated industry.
• Developed the Career Portal and Résumé Bank for firms to post entry-level positions for new graduates and student internships. The portal also allows potential student interns and upcoming graduates to post résumés in its résumé bank that can be searched by corrugated partner companies. More than 90 percent of the openings posted on the portal have been successfully filled utilizing the portal in conjunction with ICPF’s résumé bank and LinkedIn corrugated career network. On average, seven qualified upcoming graduates apply to each entry-level opening posted on ICPF’s career portal.
• Developed and Placed Corrugated Curricula to support real-world corrugated instruction in colleges and universities. ICPF’s corrugated curricula are accessible to students and faculty directly from ICPF’s website.
• Conducted Annual Student Corrugated Packaging Design Presentation Competitions that expose students to the corrugated packaging industry. In the annual Best of the Best student runoff competition held during ICPF’s annual interactive Teleconference, student winners from the AICC competition are challenged to “show, tell, and sell” their entry to their student peers. Students are awarded cash prizes, and many participating in ICPF’s Best of the Best competition subsequently have been recruited into the corrugated packaging industry.
• Produced a Powerful Recruiting Tool on DVD that explains the corrugated packaging industry and its careers to students and those outside the industry. Students can access these informational career videos directly from ICPF’s website.
• Initiated a Pilot Program with SkillsUSA, AICC, and FBA to assist local plants in working with local high schools and vocational colleges to train and recruit millennials for careers on the plant floor.

Your support:

• Helps ICPF maintain its work with colleges, universities, and vocational and high schools in broadening its outreach to students.
• Helps ICPF maintain and expand its initiatives, like its annual careers in corrugated interactive teleconferences, student design competitions, student dialogue dinners, career portal, and corrugated career LinkedIn network.
• Helps ICPF develop new recruiting products to reach students from multiple educational backgrounds to promote the diverse careers in the corrugated industry.
• Helps ICPF maintain its work to match students and upcoming graduates to student internship and full-time openings in the corrugated packaging and displays industry.

If you are struggling to find talented people, you have a greater stake in ICPF’s success than you may realize. Your company’s financial support will further enable ICPF’s work to directly assist you in securing student interns and new graduates to meet your immediate needs and for succession planning.

We welcome and need your support.

For more information, visit ICPF at www.careersincorrugated.org, contact

rflaherty@icpfbox.org, or call 703-549-8580.

Richard Flaherty is president of the International Corrugated Packaging Foundation.