We decided to count these rare contributions at both Duke and NC State.
While the class action lawsuit resulted in mandatory payments to specific
claimants, the residual - the amounts not specifically awarded -
essentially being voluntarily given to nonprofit organizations as selected
by the plaintiffs.
BTW, the recipients of these awards must be at least loosely related to the
lawsuit. There have been instances when the judge felt that the designated
beneficiary didn't represent the class that had filed the suit to begin
with.
We booked these gifts under "Unidentified Donors" and moved on.
John
John H. Taylor
Principal, John H. Taylor Consulting
2604 Sevier St.
Durham, NC 27705
johntaylorconsulting@gmail.com
919.816.5903 (cell/text)
Serving the Advancement Community Since 1987
On Wed, Jan 16, 2019 at 11:29 AM Jeff Beachy <
jdbeachy@scu.edu> wrote:
> We are having some discussions about how to handle cy pres awards (funds
> left over from class action lawsuits that are distributed to charities). I
> am proposing that these are not charitable contributions since they are not
> voluntary. I've searched the archive and did find a few older posts along
> those lines, but I wanted to see if anyone had any written guidelines and
> to see what common practice is.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Jeff
>
> --
> Jeff Beachy
> Assistant Vice President for Advancement Services
> University Relations
> Santa Clara University
> 408-554-5360
>
>