FundSvcs Community

Aloha to my fellow IRF listers, Would you be willing to take a moment and share the following information about your organization? We're frequently being challenged on our fees and I think it's important that our argument to support our fees represents an apples to apples comparison with similar institutionally related foundations of universities. Currently, our gift fee is 5% and our endowment fee is 1.5% on an endowment of about $300M. Of course if our endowment were much larger we could lower that fee or use the income revenue to demand a lower gift fee. When detractors mention other organizations, they may not understand the full picture. If you prefer to contact me directly, please do so at eric.valdescaro -at sign- uhfoundation (dot) org. Thank you! -Eric Eric F. Valdescaro AVP, Advancement Services University of Hawai'i Foundation

Eric, have you checked out the survey CASE conducts regularly (annually) that includes benchmarking information on administrative/gift fees? https://www.case.org/Samples_Research_and_Tools/Benchmarking_and_Research/Surveys_and_Studies/IRF_Data_Book.html If not familiar you might want to contact Brian Flahaven at CASE who might supply you with results of previous studies. Like VSE's Data Miner these data can b sliced and diced to help find some comparisons. As I left NC State (with an affiliated foundation) in 2013 I have not obtained more current survey results. But just to give you a sense, for the fiscal year that ended in 2012, over 50% of responding foundations were charging 1.5% or MORE on endowments. And for non-endowment gifts, 94,9% of those institutions who were assessing a gift fee the mean was 5% with 5% being the most common (43.2% of institutions), 1.5% was the lowest, and 10% was the highest. Yes, you will find detractors. Those are usually (in my experience) fundraisers who do not want to have the gift fee conversation with their donors. We had a very few of those at NC State when we implemented our gift fee program in 2010. But while they might not like the fee, what you have described at UH is very typical. Check out the resources at CASE! 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 Mon, Feb 25, 2019 at 1:32 PM Eric Valdescaro < eric.valdescaro@uhfoundation.org> wrote: > Aloha to my fellow IRF listers, > > Would you be willing to take a moment and share the following information > about your organization? > > We're frequently being challenged on our fees and I think it's important > that our argument to support our fees represents an apples to apples > comparison with similar institutionally related foundations of > universities. Currently, our gift fee is 5% and our endowment fee is 1.5% > on an endowment of about $300M. Of course if our endowment were much > larger we could lower that fee or use the income revenue to demand a lower > gift fee. When detractors mention other organizations, they may not > understand the full picture. If you prefer to contact me directly, please > do so at eric.valdescaro -at sign- uhfoundation (dot) org. > > Thank you! > -Eric > > Eric F. Valdescaro > AVP, Advancement Services > University of Hawai'i Foundation >

Thanks John, much appreciated Eric From: Advancement Services Discussion List [mailto:FUNDSVCS@LISTSERV.FUNDSVCS.ORG] On Behalf Of John Taylor Sent: Monday, February 25, 2019 8:54 AM To: FUNDSVCS@LISTSERV.FUNDSVCS.ORG Subject: Re: [FUNDSVCS] Fellow IRFs - Need your help! Eric, have you checked out the survey CASE conducts regularly (annually) that includes benchmarking information on administrative/gift fees? https://www.case.org/Samples_Research_and_Tools/Benchmarking_and_Research/Surveys_and_Studies/IRF_Data_Book.html If not familiar you might want to contact Brian Flahaven at CASE who might supply you with results of previous studies. Like VSE's Data Miner these data can b sliced and diced to help find some comparisons. As I left NC State (with an affiliated foundation) in 2013 I have not obtained more current survey results. But just to give you a sense, for the fiscal year that ended in 2012, over 50% of responding foundations were charging 1.5% or MORE on endowments. And for non-endowment gifts, 94,9% of those institutions who were assessing a gift fee the mean was 5% with 5% being the most common (43.2% of institutions), 1.5% was the lowest, and 10% was the highest. Yes, you will find detractors. Those are usually (in my experience) fundraisers who do not want to have the gift fee conversation with their donors. We had a very few of those at NC State when we implemented our gift fee program in 2010. But while they might not like the fee, what you have described at UH is very typical. Check out the resources at CASE! John John H. Taylor Principal, John H. Taylor Consulting 2604 Sevier St. Durham, NC 27705 johntaylorconsulting@gmail.com<mailto:johntaylorconsulting@gmail.com> 919.816.5903 (cell/text) Serving the Advancement Community Since 1987 On Mon, Feb 25, 2019 at 1:32 PM Eric Valdescaro <eric.valdescaro@uhfoundation.org<mailto:eric.valdescaro@uhfoundation.org>> wrote: Aloha to my fellow IRF listers, Would you be willing to take a moment and share the following information about your organization? We're frequently being challenged on our fees and I think it's important that our argument to support our fees represents an apples to apples comparison with similar institutionally related foundations of universities. Currently, our gift fee is 5% and our endowment fee is 1.5% on an endowment of about $300M. Of course if our endowment were much larger we could lower that fee or use the income revenue to demand a lower gift fee. When detractors mention other organizations, they may not understand the full picture. If you prefer to contact me directly, please do so at eric.valdescaro -at sign- uhfoundation (dot) org. Thank you! -Eric Eric F. Valdescaro AVP, Advancement Services University of Hawai'i Foundation This message (including any attachments) is covered by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 U.S.C. 2510-2521. It is the property of the University of Hawaii Foundation. It may contain confidential information intended for a specific individual and purpose. If you are not the intended recipient, you must delete this message. You are hereby notified that any disclosure, copying, or distribution of this message is prohibited.