FundSvcs Community

Hi Everyone! 

I was wondering if anyone has a policy or best practices/rules on sending Endowment Reports out to donors, who should receive them, etc. Just curious to see what everyone else is doing. 

We have a number of endowments where the donor is now deceased but we have been sending their reports to their family members now. Is this something that anyone else does or do they wait for the family members to request this report? 

Or we are also in a debate on endowment reports where the founding donor is deceased but we have multiple current donors who still give to that endowment, does anyone send these donors reports? 

Any insights would be helpful! Thank you in advance! 

Best, 
Gizel

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Gizel Avina
Assoc. Director, Gifts Accounting & Database Admin
Claremont Graduate University
gizel.avina@cgu.edu
------------------------------

I'm curious to see responses to this question as well.

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Cameron Alzubi
Director, Gift Administration
Illinois Institute of Technology
calzubi@iit.edu
giftadmin@iit.edu
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Original Message:
Sent: 10-28-2022 12:50 PM
From: Gizel Avina
Subject: Endowment Report Policies/Best Practices

Hi Everyone! 

I was wondering if anyone has a policy or best practices/rules on sending Endowment Reports out to donors, who should receive them, etc. Just curious to see what everyone else is doing. 

We have a number of endowments where the donor is now deceased but we have been sending their reports to their family members now. Is this something that anyone else does or do they wait for the family members to request this report? 

Or we are also in a debate on endowment reports where the founding donor is deceased but we have multiple current donors who still give to that endowment, does anyone send these donors reports? 

Any insights would be helpful! Thank you in advance! 

Best, 
Gizel

------------------------------
Gizel Avina
Assoc. Director, Gifts Accounting & Database Admin
Claremont Graduate University
gizel.avina@cgu.edu
------------------------------

Gizel,
How timely...we just discussed this earlier today.
I don't have definitive answers for you, but here are a few comments on what happens with our University.

1. Many of our funds were established many years ago. In the past, when the donor that signed the MOU died, we did not have a consistent policy for someone to contact the family and figure out if it should still be sent to someone else. In some cases, a family member was identified and for others that was not the case.
2. We use a Primary Fund Contact relationship for the MOU signer(s), and Secondary Fund Contact relationship if the donor specifies another individual that they would like to receive the endowment report. Generally, when the primary fund contact dies, we change the secondary contact to the Primary and continue sending it. If there is no secondary, we are now trying to make it our policy to have our Director of Donor Stewardship reach out to the family to find a new contact.
3. For some funds that have multiple donors, we assign an Internal Fund Contact relationship (i.e., a Dean, Department Head or Athletic Director). We are looking at this practice, because the contact information is not automatically updated when someone leaves the institution. We do not send these endowment reports to the individual donors.

I hope that is helpful to you in some way. We are working on making documenting our process to improve it in the future. I look forward to hearing how other organizations tackle this.
Dawn Pello

------------------------------
Dawn Pello
Director, Advancement Strategy & Technology
Southern Connecticut State University
pellod1@southernct.edu
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 10-28-2022 12:50 PM
From: Gizel Avina
Subject: Endowment Report Policies/Best Practices

Hi Everyone! 

I was wondering if anyone has a policy or best practices/rules on sending Endowment Reports out to donors, who should receive them, etc. Just curious to see what everyone else is doing. 

We have a number of endowments where the donor is now deceased but we have been sending their reports to their family members now. Is this something that anyone else does or do they wait for the family members to request this report? 

Or we are also in a debate on endowment reports where the founding donor is deceased but we have multiple current donors who still give to that endowment, does anyone send these donors reports? 

Any insights would be helpful! Thank you in advance! 

Best, 
Gizel

------------------------------
Gizel Avina
Assoc. Director, Gifts Accounting & Database Admin
Claremont Graduate University
gizel.avina@cgu.edu
------------------------------

This is great! Thank you for the insight. I like the idea of a Primary and Secondary Fund Contact relationship because this will definitely help identify who should receive the reports once the donor has passed. I'll bring up that with my team! 

Thank you!!

------------------------------
Gizel Avina
Assoc. Director, Gifts Accounting & Database Admin
Claremont Graduate University
gizel.avina@cgu.edu
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 11-01-2022 02:32 PM
From: Dawn Pello
Subject: Endowment Report Policies/Best Practices

Gizel,
How timely...we just discussed this earlier today.
I don't have definitive answers for you, but here are a few comments on what happens with our University.

1. Many of our funds were established many years ago. In the past, when the donor that signed the MOU died, we did not have a consistent policy for someone to contact the family and figure out if it should still be sent to someone else. In some cases, a family member was identified and for others that was not the case.
2. We use a Primary Fund Contact relationship for the MOU signer(s), and Secondary Fund Contact relationship if the donor specifies another individual that they would like to receive the endowment report. Generally, when the primary fund contact dies, we change the secondary contact to the Primary and continue sending it. If there is no secondary, we are now trying to make it our policy to have our Director of Donor Stewardship reach out to the family to find a new contact.
3. For some funds that have multiple donors, we assign an Internal Fund Contact relationship (i.e., a Dean, Department Head or Athletic Director). We are looking at this practice, because the contact information is not automatically updated when someone leaves the institution. We do not send these endowment reports to the individual donors.

I hope that is helpful to you in some way. We are working on making documenting our process to improve it in the future. I look forward to hearing how other organizations tackle this.
Dawn Pello

------------------------------
Dawn Pello
Director, Advancement Strategy & Technology
Southern Connecticut State University
pellod1@southernct.edu

Original Message:
Sent: 10-28-2022 12:50 PM
From: Gizel Avina
Subject: Endowment Report Policies/Best Practices

Hi Everyone! 

I was wondering if anyone has a policy or best practices/rules on sending Endowment Reports out to donors, who should receive them, etc. Just curious to see what everyone else is doing. 

We have a number of endowments where the donor is now deceased but we have been sending their reports to their family members now. Is this something that anyone else does or do they wait for the family members to request this report? 

Or we are also in a debate on endowment reports where the founding donor is deceased but we have multiple current donors who still give to that endowment, does anyone send these donors reports? 

Any insights would be helpful! Thank you in advance! 

Best, 
Gizel

------------------------------
Gizel Avina
Assoc. Director, Gifts Accounting & Database Admin
Claremont Graduate University
gizel.avina@cgu.edu
------------------------------

We have ours set up similar to Dawn. We have a contact type code of "Endowment Report Recipient" and this links the constituent to the endowed fund/designation. We have several donors that receive multiple reports, several funds that have multiple recipients, deceased donors where family members now receive the reports, etc. We have two main types of recipients - internal for deans and department heads, and external for donors outside the university.

------------------------------
Lauren Shiver
Associate Vice President of Advancement Operations
University of Louisiana Lafayette
lauren.shiver@louisiana.edu
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 10-28-2022 12:50 PM
From: Gizel Avina
Subject: Endowment Report Policies/Best Practices

Hi Everyone! 

I was wondering if anyone has a policy or best practices/rules on sending Endowment Reports out to donors, who should receive them, etc. Just curious to see what everyone else is doing. 

We have a number of endowments where the donor is now deceased but we have been sending their reports to their family members now. Is this something that anyone else does or do they wait for the family members to request this report? 

Or we are also in a debate on endowment reports where the founding donor is deceased but we have multiple current donors who still give to that endowment, does anyone send these donors reports? 

Any insights would be helpful! Thank you in advance! 

Best, 
Gizel

------------------------------
Gizel Avina
Assoc. Director, Gifts Accounting & Database Admin
Claremont Graduate University
gizel.avina@cgu.edu
------------------------------

This is also a great idea! We just transitioned to a new database and we are considering how we want to track these types of reports and how to link the constituent to the fund. 

Thank you!!! Both of these were very helpful!

------------------------------
Gizel Avina
Assoc. Director, Gifts Accounting & Database Admin
Claremont Graduate University
gizel.avina@cgu.edu
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 11-01-2022 05:49 PM
From: Lauren Shiver
Subject: Endowment Report Policies/Best Practices

We have ours set up similar to Dawn. We have a contact type code of "Endowment Report Recipient" and this links the constituent to the endowed fund/designation. We have several donors that receive multiple reports, several funds that have multiple recipients, deceased donors where family members now receive the reports, etc. We have two main types of recipients - internal for deans and department heads, and external for donors outside the university.

------------------------------
Lauren Shiver
Associate Vice President of Advancement Operations
University of Louisiana Lafayette
lauren.shiver@louisiana.edu

Original Message:
Sent: 10-28-2022 12:50 PM
From: Gizel Avina
Subject: Endowment Report Policies/Best Practices

Hi Everyone! 

I was wondering if anyone has a policy or best practices/rules on sending Endowment Reports out to donors, who should receive them, etc. Just curious to see what everyone else is doing. 

We have a number of endowments where the donor is now deceased but we have been sending their reports to their family members now. Is this something that anyone else does or do they wait for the family members to request this report? 

Or we are also in a debate on endowment reports where the founding donor is deceased but we have multiple current donors who still give to that endowment, does anyone send these donors reports? 

Any insights would be helpful! Thank you in advance! 

Best, 
Gizel

------------------------------
Gizel Avina
Assoc. Director, Gifts Accounting & Database Admin
Claremont Graduate University
gizel.avina@cgu.edu
------------------------------