Gift Proposals
Stewardship staff provide valuable insight throughout the donor engagement process, and it is important to be involved in conversations about new gift proposals as early as possible. As part of the cross-functional team representing the university to a donor, stewardship and donor relations professionals are experts in the logistics of responsibly administering gift funds and are responsible for maintaining the relationship with donors after a gift is made, in preparation for the next gift. Successful stewardship starts with creating effective gift proposals.
Gift proposals represent perhaps the most collaborative part of the donor engagement process, requiring strategic input from major gift officers, stewardship officers, and other administrative staff all working together to encourage acceptance of a major gift solicitation. While every advancement team will have different fundraising priorities and operational approaches, this section will attempt to guide both on-going and specific conversations around gift proposals.
As the two most involved donor-facing roles in the advancement enterprise, a successful MGO/SDR relationship is built on open and regular communication. Frequency of formal check-ins will vary from team to team but should be consistent. TED reports such as the Interaction Detail Report may be helpful in structuring these check-ins and providing information day-to-day about the constituents currently being engaged in your unit. SDR staff should also be familiar with the “Impact Journey Template” used by MGOs when navigating through the donor engagement process, adapted from the Plus Delta Partners Contact Report Template.
When collaborating with an MGO to craft a gift proposal, consider both the donor’s intent as well as the logistics described below. Remember that we, as a team, represent the university and the university’s best interests. The donor, their financial advisors, and their lawyers, are the donor’s advocates and we are the institution’s advocates. A successful donor-centric approach to fundraising allows us to, whenever possible, translate the donor’s intent into feasible practice. The understanding that our end goals are similar will allow for open and honest communication between all parties. Reference slides 21 through 31 of the 2-9-23 Joint MGO/SDR Roundtable Negotiate Gift Terms presentation for examples of how to guide a gift proposal process.
(adapted from UIF Online “FAQs | Restrictions on Fund Purpose”)
It is invaluable for a stewardship officer to get to know the people who have a role in spending the money at the unit level. This can include unit leadership, scholarship committees, and business managers. For example, because scholarships are the “entry-level” donor funded endowment, it may be useful to find out who awards scholarships for the unit and ask them the following questions:
- What is your process for awarding scholarships each year?
- Who else is involved?
- What data sources do you use to identify the students who qualify for each scholarship?
- How long, on average, does it take to award a scholarship?
- How long does it take to award a simple scholarship (e.g. one based only on “academic merit” or “financial need”), versus one that involves subjective selection criteria?
- Does the person or committee responsible for awarding scholarships know how to confirm financial need with OSFA?
- Which selection criteria are difficult to award and why?
Understanding the answers to these questions will help stewardship officers be better equipped to counsel donors and major gift officers on the drawbacks and inefficiencies of subjective selection criteria.
For a more comprehensive list of common problematic restrictions that cause problems for units trying to spend gifts, please review the UIF Online “FAQs | Restrictions on Fund Purpose” A summary is included below. Many of these can be avoided by using a written stewardship plan that has a limited duration; contact Illinois Stewardship (stewardship@illinois.edu) for an example stewardship plan document. Confirm with your business office for preferred language, as well as how funds can and will be used to align with donor intent.
Details of how the gift will be stewarded in the future should not be included in fund agreements. These provisions will not stand the test of time and should not be guaranteed.
For endowments, the net income will vary from year to year, making it impossible to establish the exact amount that will be available for the department to spend from the fund each year. For current use funds, sometimes donors will make a gift of a lump sum that is intended to be spent down according to a certain schedule. While this is fairly common and acceptable, it is preferred that references to the amount spent each year not be included in the gift documentation.
Another area to avoid is including details about when the donor’s fund will be spent. Most units have established processes that determine when scholarships are awarded or new faculty are hired, so abstaining from specifics on timing in gift documentation allows these existing processes to guide use.
In establishing the purpose of the fund, particularly for scholarships, it is important for gift officers (and donors) to understand how scholarships are awarded by the unit. When awarding scholarships, selection criteria need to be evaluated based on objective, searchable information.
On the other hand, subjective selection criteria make it difficult to identify the students who qualify. Examples include criteria that use terms like “motivated”, “interested in X field”, or “of good character”, just to name a few. Because these criteria cannot be searched for in existing university databases, the unit would need to implement an application process, specifically to seek the information necessary to award this one scholarship. Doing so is time-consuming, and therefore costly, for the unit.
Terms that restrict a scholarship to only students from a certain high school pose multiple problems. Depending on what selection criteria are included, the size of the benefitting unit, and other factors, it is very possible that there may not be any eligible students to receive the scholarship. Additionally, some geographic criteria cannot be easily administered, for example “downstate Illinois” and “South of I-80” are geographic criteria that are sufficiently imprecise to cause problems.
There are legal restrictions on how the University can administer gifts that are restricted only to recipients in a certain protected class. For more information about this complex subject, register for the Protected Classes and Meeting Donor Intent course in iLEARN. Newly scheduled courses will be be announced in the monthly UIF Advancement Insider email.
Selection Criteria – GPA
Rather than using terms that restrict a scholarship to only students above a certain GPA, we encourage using Financial Aid’s model of “in good academic standing” for above a 2.0 (i.e., not on academic probation) and “academic merit” for above a 3.0. This helps us standardize language and procedure, and also protects against the possibility of the GPA scale changing in the future (as it has in the past). For example, a 3.2 on a 5.0 scale is very different than a 3.2 on a today’s 4.0 scale.
Some donors would like to dictate the composition of the selection committee. These restrictions can pose problems for various reasons, not limited to processes changing over time, individuals not representing the best interests of the university, or tax ramifications of a donor serving on a committee. Donors cannot serve on selection committees for funds they have supported, per IRS Publication 526, Charitable Contributions.
Occasionally, donors wish to establish a fund that gives students loans. Although this practice was more common in the past, currently a good infrastructure does not exist for campuses to administer these loans.
Sometimes donors wish for their gift to benefit two or more departments by rotating between the departments each year. This structure is not preferred, because it must be managed “manually” (i.e. the standard UIF fund management systems cannot automatically move this fund from unit to unit each year), therefore the opportunity for human error increases. Additionally, because the fund is not “owned” by a single unit, the benefiting units will not see the fund on their regular UIF reports and budget projections in off years, which can cause the unit to forget about the fund and neglect to spend the money.
Fund Search
The Fund Search is found under both the UI Reporting and Business Managers tabs in TED. It can be used to find financial details about existing funds, as well as restrictions/guidelines and any additional comments. TED access is limited to funds within your unit; contact Illinois Stewardship or UIF Gift Admin for information on funds outside your unit. To better understand the information presented in the Fund Search Report, click on the Help button on the Fund Search screen to access the “High Level Overview for Searching Funds” document.
Interaction Detail Report
The Interaction Detail Report (found under UI Reporting/Development Performance in TED) generates a list of all interactions, by fundraiser and employing unit, during a given time frame. Note that as of 2/8/2024, it does not yet include steps from the Stewardship Plans section of TED. This has been brought to the attention of the UIF Business Intelligence team for further investigation.
Impact Journey Template
Using the Donor Engagement Process (DEP), fundraisers guide prospects along the journey to their desired philanthropic impact at Illinois. The Impact Journey Template facilitates the consistent documentation of the DEP in TED.
DMI Enrollment and Degrees Awarded Dashboards
The Division of Management and Information dashboards can be helpful in providing data around student populations when discussing the feasibility of potential scholarship funds. Data can be broken down by degree level, ethnicity, gender, residency, college and ethnicity, and college and gender.
DMI Student Enrollment Statistics
If more detail is required than can be generated by the DMI dashboards, the DMI student enrollment page provides a number of more comprehensive reports as of the 10th day of each semester.
Enrollment Management
The Enrollment Management team maintains a record of reports similar to those found in DMI. Also shared are the annual Enrollment Management Summit presentations. Note that these include data from two years prior due to the time limitations posed by summer courses. Data requests outside of the stock reports can be submitted by email to enrollment-management@illinois.edu.
Illini Success
The Illini Success Annual Reports detail metrics on the most recent graduating class.
UIF Online
The Gift Documentation section of UIF Online contains many valuable resources, including the FAQ: Restrictions on Fund Purpose which outlines common scenarios and pitfalls that arise when developing gift funds.
Illinois Stewardship
OVCIA’s stewardship team (stewardship@illinois.edu) is copied on all gift documentation requests and is always an available resource prior to submitting. Feel free to reach out with any questions regarding feasibility of gift proposals at any time.