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2024 CASE Global Reporting Standards Updates
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Okay, we're going to start in a couple of minutes. I'm seeing people coming in now, so we'll let people get into the room, and then we'll get started. Great to see people eager to learn all about standards, one of my favorite topics. Those of you just coming in, we're just waiting a couple of minutes to let people get into the room and then we'll get started. Just giving it another minute for people to join and then we'll get started and give you all you need to know about the case global reporting standards and some of the changes we've been making. Okay, well let's go ahead and kick it off. You're all in the right place. You have joined us for the case global reporting standards 2024 update. We're going to share with you today, some of the revisions and additions we've been making to the standards and talk through what that means for you and the work that you're doing. First off, let's let us introduce ourselves. I'm Cara Jacketmany. I'm the Vice President of Data Research and Technology at CASE. So I'm responsible as part of my role for the work done by CASE Insights, which is all of our surveys and benchmarking and various reports and for the case global reporting standards and keeping them up to date for the profession. But I'm going to turn it over to my colleague who is the true standards expert on this call. Thank you, Cara. Hi everyone. I am Cindy Moon Barna. I am the Senior Director of Library and Standards. Some of you may know me from the CASE Library. One of your member benefits and, you know, we create a lot of the subject guides and sample collections on the website. Over the past, I would say six years, I have been the main project person for the case global reporting standards. I worked directly with the team on our team of volunteers on developing the new edition that came out in 2021. And then the other committee that we stood up to get together this 2024 update. So if you email standards at case.org, you will probably hear from me or one of my fabulous librarian colleagues. First, we're going to kind of see where everybody is and ask a quick poll question. How well do you know the case global reporting standards? And, you know, this goes everywhere from I have no idea what we're talking about to I really could be teaching this class. And if you are, reach out to me and I'll let you teach this class with me. We always like more people working with the standards and they're really important to our profession. Looks like while you're doing the poll. Also, if you have questions throughout, put them in the Q&A and we will address them at the end of the session. It looks like the majority of everyone in today's session could be use it a lot in their daily work and want to learn more. So that's great. And then we've got some people who, you know, not quite sure how it applies to them or what the context is. So we hope to give you context for all of those facets in this session today. All right, we're going to go ahead and jump into some of our content now. So here's some of what we're going to cover today. First of all, I'm going to tell you a little bit about Case Insights and the standards and the overall work that we're doing. Cindy's going to, we're going to talk about the case global reporting standards in more detail and some of the sections that have changed and then what some of the opportunities and places are for you to get more information following up from this call. But I'm going to walk us through the first part about Case Insights in more detail. So one of the things that you really get with your membership at Case is a lot of access to a variety of thought leadership from Case. And all of this is based on the global reporting standards. And it's based by on people like you on this call who are using the standards in their daily work and are using them also to share what you're doing at your institution with the rest of the field. I can tell from that poll question that I'm speaking to a lot of the people like me who really get excited by data or get excited by how we're tracking and capturing information and wanting to know more. And even if you weren't in that kind of box of using the standards all the time, the fact that you're taking the time today to learn more about this really shows that you're thinking about the profession as a whole and how we tell compelling stories with the what we're gathering and what we're looking at. And what we do at Case is we really start to take all of the data that you're collecting and that our members around the globe are collecting, and we produce a variety of reports to be able to talk about philanthropy in the United States through our Voluntary Supportive Education Survey, our Alumni Engagement Survey, which is a global survey. We've got a survey in partnership with NAIS that is really focusing on independent schools. A long-running survey in the United Kingdom. And we do some pulse surveys and reports that have details about new things that are emerging. One highlighted here is on advancement metrics that matter, what people have been really been focusing on and what they're measuring, but we recently did one on AI as well. And then we do try to highlight the great work you're doing as members with some of our stories and currents. The visualizing success highlight in the middle there speaks to that. But really, Case is involved in not just capturing data, helping people understand the standards of our profession, but then what are we learning from it? And Insights is really all about putting those data into practice. Go ahead to the next slide. So this is the work that we do in Case Insights, and we're only going to touch on a portion of it today, but you can see that the Case Global Reporting Standards are at the heart of what we do, and you can learn more on our website. But we have a variety of places where we're capturing data on philanthropy in several regions where we have members. We also have a global survey on alumni engagement, like I mentioned. We have a new campaign survey. So if you have recently completed a campaign, please do reach out to myself or Cindy after this call, and we'll put you in touch with how to complete that survey. It really can be helpful for others as they're trying to shape their campaigns and for you as you look back on your campaigns in the future. We also work with our Opportunity and Inclusion Center at Case on our Inclusion Index, which does some data collection around diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging within your advancement team and within the activities that you're doing. So that's another area where Insights is working. And we recently have completed the preliminary work of a task force to start to shape some areas of categorizing and counting in marketing and communications, really going on a similar journey as what we have with alumni engagement. Right now, our global reporting standards are most shaped by philanthropy and the work that we're doing there. But they do influence some of how we count in these other areas. And there's places where we'll be expanding the standards going forward to speak to some of these other areas more completely. But philanthropy and campaigns have robust sections now. There's pieces of alumni engagement. Other pieces will be coming in. Go ahead to the next slide. So the case global reporting standards, there are a few of you who are less familiar with them. But even those who use them all the time may not think about all of what they mean for the profession. What they really do provide for us is not just that book to go back and reference. I used to be the person going back and referencing that book all the time, so I completely understand the value there. But they provide a common foundation so that we're all talking about things in similar ways, counting things in similar ways, and can make meaningful comparisons within our own data and across our profession. So it's enabling benchmarking. We have transparency and consistency. And this new edition in 2021 has a truly global perspective. Previous editions of the standards really just focused on the United States. And we're tied to U.S. tax code. And we've expanded to have, with insights from volunteers all over the world, to be able to have a truly global edition that really allows us to benchmark much more broadly and just to have standard practices across our profession. There's also ethical guidelines at the beginning of the standards, which every single person working in advancement should be familiar with, even if you're never counting anything, just to understand some of the basic principles that shape how we do our work. And this is really the common resource for everyone working in advancement. Next slide. Another thing that's really exciting about our standards and the work that we've been doing in the last couple of years since the global reporting standards came out is we've realized that the standards are most powerful when they're widely used. And one of the ways for the standards to be the most widely used is if all of the people working in advancement and helping you with your work in advancement are also very well versed in the standards. So we started the standards champions program. And on the slide, you see our first standards champions, who are all industry partners that work with us at CASE and that you can work with, who have access to the standards, training on the standards for their staff, ability to use the standards more fully in their work, and a way to really champion their use. So this is really a set of partners that are invested in the CASE global reporting standards and using them in their work and helping you to use them as well. So that's an exciting aspect of thinking about how we actually use the standards across the profession. Next slide. So now getting into the heart of why you're all here today, we've made some changes. And every time we make changes, it affects the work that you do. I also personally know how that feels and what that looks like. The standards were first published in 1982, and the first global edition in 2021. Since we released that global edition, where we made the most significant set of changes that had been made in over a decade to the standards, we have been receiving all of your questions. We have been receiving people pulling us aside at conferences and asking us, what does this mean? We've been having webinars where people have asked us questions. We've been hearing them from the standards at case.org email. We've also been listening, seeing where people have struggled with surveys, all of these different pieces. And so this update is really seeking to take all of that feedback and places that there was confusion or places where there could be more guidance needed and to make some adjustments to the standards in order to help you in the work that you do and to respond to a lot of the feedback and the pieces we've been hearing. And this is actually a process that we're looking to do in an ongoing manner with the standards. We've always done updates in the past, but they've been fairly far apart. We're looking to do much more frequent updates going forward. This is the first substantial set, but there have been some minor ones since 2021 already. And this is to help us respond to emerging needs, add more details over time, and to keep the standards really being evergreen for our profession, to be up to date for everything that you need. So this is the process we've gone through. And we didn't do this alone. We pulled together a representative committee to make these updates, pulling in people, someone from Auckland, several people from the UK, really looking to have in the United States, really looking to have a diverse range of perspectives as we contemplated changes. So we really thank these volunteers. The work that we do would not be possible without them, and it also wouldn't reflect the practices of the profession as fully if we didn't have such dedicated volunteers willing to give their time, expertise, and debate the nuances of pledge counting and outright gifts with us for extended periods of time. And I'm going to turn it over to Cindy now for the heart of this presentation, really getting into what's changed. Again, remember to put your questions into the chat, and we'll be able to answer them at the end, as well as any other general questions you have about the standards. Great. Thank you, Cara, and thanks for that great overview on the important work that our Insights Division does. The library is a part of data research and technology, so all of the work that they do is important to the work my team does. Now I'm going to talk to you about my favorite topic, the case global reporting standards. And it looks like from our initial poll that this group is, you're my people, and these are the ones who want to hear about this work. I'm going to start off with a couple of introductory slides to the case standards. This is one of the only slides that I will read verbatim, but it is the foundational definition of all the work that the committee did from 2018 to 2021 for the first global edition, and then also for the case standards. And also, again, you know, we'd start every meeting with it for the 2024 update. Educational philanthropy is the voluntary act of providing private financial support to nonprofit educational institutions. To be categorized as philanthropy in keeping with case standards, such financial support must be provided for the sole purpose of benefiting the institution's mission and its social impact without the expressed or implied expectation that the donor will receive anything more than recognition and stewardship as a result of such support. There are a couple of phrases that are really important in here. Philanthropy is a voluntary act, that it is private financial support. Gifts from government entities do not count as philanthropic. And then the sole purpose of these gifts is benefiting the institution's mission, and the donor will not receive anything more than recognition or stewardship. The case global reporting standards have a section on donor control and donor influence. Those are issues that have been in the news quite frequently as of late. So if that's something that's coming up with you or your donors, on the new standards website, which just got refreshed this morning, there is a downloadable PDF of the content for donor control and donor influence. That is pretty, and you can hang it on your wall, you can decorate your house with it, or you can hand it to your gift officers or your donors if anyone has questions. The big difference in creating this global edition was that we are looking at fundraising through two specific lenses. One is funds received, which is a measure of money in the bank. It includes pledge payments received, any realized bequests or legacies, and outright gifts. I just need to move you so I can see the bottom of my slide. And then new funds committed is the second metric. It includes a measure of impact of your fundraising efforts. It includes new monies and properties committed in the reporting year. It includes new pledges and recurring gifts. It includes new bequests and legacy intentions for donors aged at least 65 years of age within the reporting year. You'll notice from this chart that there are certain sections that are counted in both metrics. Outright gifts are counted in both metrics, and newly established irrevocable planned gifts are counted in both metrics. The important part here is these are not two numbers that are added together. They are two lenses for looking at the same thing. Funds received, this is the full definition of funds received. It includes outright gifts, payments made to receive pledges, and the pledge was made in current or previous years. Irrevocable planned gifts received at face value and realized bequests or legacies. New funds committed, this is the biggest change in the 2024 update. And those of you who have these definitions tattooed on your forehead like I do, you may have caught it in my previous slide. For new funds committed, previously it said that new documented pledges for up to five years. Say, for instance, you had a major gift commitment that was seven years long. In doing annual reporting to case, you would have to split up that gift and do the first five years in one year of your reporting, and then in year six, add year six and seven. We received a lot of feedback from our members saying that that was very difficult to operationalize, and this provision really came out of our case insights on philanthropy in the UK and Ireland. And we had a lot of conversations with member institutions in the UK, member institutions in the US, member institutions in Canada to say, okay, if we change this, will you all be okay? And everybody was like, yes, please, please. So, the new language says new funds committed includes new outright gifts, new documented pledges. You can now count the entire value of the commitment. The very important thing to notice here is it does not change how you count the payments. Pledge payments will still be counted in funds received as those pledge payments are received by your organization. As a part of this discussion, we also had a discussion within the committee talking about different kinds of pledges. As we learned the first time around with this work, the same words aren't used to describe the same giving vehicles. So what we did is, and I think many people will find it helpful, we provided in the digital edition and coming soon in the print edition, a clarification on pledges. And I think this will really help everyone as they're navigating, you know, how do I count this kind of commitment? So for regular recurring sustaining pledges that do not have an end date, you would count those as the payments received. You know, some examples of that are direct debit, automatic regular bank transfers, and monthly debit or credit card payments. And then for pledges with the schedule of multiple years, you would count the payment received. And then in new funds committed now, you could count the entire value of the documented commitment. An example of that would be a major gift with a multi-year payout schedule, including more than five years, which, you know, was the previous limitation. And then for pledges limited to a single fiscal year, you would count the payment received. And then in new funds committed, you would count the actual value of the documented commitment. An example of that would be annual fund pledges. Another area of adjustment is recurring gifts. It wasn't specifically outlined as a part of the definition within new funds committed, but it was mentioned in the explanation of new funds committed. The current language says that new funds committed excludes some income received in the previous year. Now the new language says the lifetime value of recurring pledges is no longer part of new funds committed. Because in this instance for a recurring pledge, we are talking about something that does not have an end date. So if we go back to this chart, then you can see, you know, regular recurring payment received, payment received. But we're not going to count the commitment yet or in its entirety because the commitment doesn't have an end date. It could be tomorrow. It could be 30 years from now. You all hope it's 30 years from now. The other area where we made some changes, and hopefully this is a scenario that none of you have to face, is the area of pledge write-offs. Previous guidance recommended that if a pledge that you needed to write off was of a material amount, was the phrasing. And if it was of a material amount, you needed to go back into your case surveys submissions and make changes or make changes in your own internal reporting. We had an entire conversation with our committee on what is a material amount. And, you know, if you're an R1 research institution in the U.S., your definition of a material amount could be much different than if you're an independent school in Australia. So, we decided that language was just not going to be relevant or that it was just too confusing. Also, the committee decided that annual surveys, such as the Voluntary Support Survey, in the U.S., you know, Case Insights on Philanthropy in the U.K. and Ireland, in Canada, in Australia and New Zealand, you know, the large annual surveys, those are a portrait of what is a material amount. And so, with that in mind, the intent was not to have people go back and forth. Those are a portrait of a snapshot, a moment in time. And that is the best information that your institution has on that particular day. And so, with that in mind, the intent was not to have people go back into surveys and change things. It also, the committee strongly felt that it shouldn't be PACE telling you how to make the decisions for what your write-off policy should be. That you should really make these decisions in collaboration with your business office, your auditors, and your internal institution policies. So, that's pledge write-offs. Basically, you know, to sum that up, you need to have a policy for pledge write-offs. You should have a policy within your campaign counting policies about, you know, what you're going to do with pledge write-offs and how you handle them. But if unexpectedly, and we hope no one has this, you have a material pledge that needs to be written off, you are not required to go back into case surveys and update your findings. Along the same lines, there was a section in the original global reporting standards about returning a gift. And it was actually included at the end of Section 7, which was the campaign section. And the decision by the committee was to move this out of a section of policy to a section of practice. Because, you know, all of our staff, our teams, you know, have worked really hard to, you know, attain these gifts, to create these commitments. So, we really prefer not to return a gift. But, once again, this is saying that you do not need to change a prior year insight survey to be adjusted. You know, there's a recommendation that the institution adjust their campaign totals if it's going to impact a currently active campaign period. And then this includes some more clarification on circumstances that may create, you know, the returning of a gift. You know, a conditional pledge was not being able to be met. The institution couldn't fulfill donor intent. The action was required by a legal order or settlement. And the donor's actions and reputation may not longer, may not align with the values of the institution. So, instead of being a policy matter, it's more just a matter of practice. And so, it's in a separate section. And you do not need to go back and change your surveys. As I mentioned in the beginning, outright gifts is included within funds received and new funds committed. Believe it or not, we got a lot of questions about what constitutes an outright gift. So, we thought, well, we should put a definition in. So, now this definition on the screen for outright gifts provides more clarity and more specifics. And it is contained in the definitions section of the work. That's really it for all of the big changes. The biggest change being new funds committed and changing the counting of pledge payments from only up to five years to counting the entire commitment, except, you know, for recurring. We've updated the website, which is case.org slash standards. There's an FAQ for purchasing the standards because you can purchase either a print or a digital edition. I would ask you that you hold off on copies of the print edition because it is at the printer. And we want to make sure you get the new one. For the digital edition, for those of you who have a subscription to the digital edition, it is live. But there are some FAQs for that process as well. The FAQ for the standards includes some more information on new funds committed. It also includes our language on donor control and donor influence. We at CASE have received a lot of questions from members and even questions from the media on this topic. It includes information about the age qualifier for bequests. Previous editions of the CASE Reporting Standards and Management Guidelines from 2009, it had a sliding scale dependent on the age of the donor. The 2018 committee felt really strongly that we needed to go with a single number, even though all the institutions in the room didn't have the same number, because it would increase transparency. It would increase, it would make benchmarking easier as well. So the age qualifier is 65 years of age by the end of the reporting year. If you are looking at bequest commitments from campaigns, then that would be at least 65 years of age or older at the end of the campaign counting period, which is much longer than your annual reporting. And then if a donor, if you have a legally paired couple, and one is 65 and one is 55, you do not count the gift until the youngest donor meets that age qualification. Counting within a campaign, we get a lot of questions about that. And since, you know, between 2009 and 2021, that was a long time and a lot of campaigns stopped and started and finished. The committee made the decision that if you are in the public phase of a campaign as of July 2021, you stick with the campaign counting guidelines that you started at the outset of the campaign. If you are in the public or, excuse me, the silent phase or the planning phase of a campaign in July of 2021, the recommendation is you switch to the new standards as you are able, as you're going forward with your campaign. At this time, I'm going to say a little shout out for the new case insights on campaign survey. It's actually launching in September, and we're looking for all institutions who have completed a campaign in the last five years. There are sections in the survey specifically that say, okay, how much did you raise for this? How much did you raise for that? But at the same time, there is another section where it says, you know, these are the sections where we raised money that do not fit under the 2024 or the 2021 global reporting standards. So it's a recognition of, you know, you were using the older standards, and so some things have changed. And that really will help us just as we make future updates, have more data points on, you know, what are the priorities and what's going on within campaigns. It also includes educational philanthropy. It's the definition. I start every meeting with it. It's ingrained in my brain. And it was the 2021 edition of the case global reporting standards that had that. Previous editions did not specifically define it. Oh, and here, this is poll question two. This is an easy one. Does your organization own a copy of the global reporting standards? You know, digital, print, both, or you don't really know? We won't talk about how many copies I have. I have a print one at home that I can scribble in. I have a print one in the office. And then I have obviously the digital one. It looks like we have a lot of people who have both. This is great. Yeah, it looks like we have a lot of people who have both editions. And we have people, some who just have digital and some who just have print. I will tell all of you who have digital subscriptions, you can get to the new edition now. Digital subscriptions are for two years, and you get any updates that happen during that time. And here's a slide telling you about the digital subscription. Some additional appendices that are included in the digital subscription, as Cara mentioned earlier, it includes, as a part of the standards, the case statement of ethics, the donor bill of rights, the principles of ethics, and then some additional appendices. The case statement of ethics, the donor bill of rights, the principles of practice for fundraising professionals, alumni professionals, and communications and marketing professionals. It also includes Spanish translations of those. There is a Spanish translation of the entire work. And there includes a kind of changes to the standards between 2009 and 2021. If you have one of the older editions, it's just a really useful spreadsheet, specifically outlining the language. It also includes a document outlining everything we talked about today, so you don't have to go scanning through the whole book. It's about four pages long. So that's there, too, if you just need to give a cheat sheet to somebody. And then for the survey implementation, CASE is very, very excited that we have a new survey platform coming in June. Currently, CASE surveys are mounted, I believe, on three or four different systems. So it will make our lives easier. It will make your lives easier. And the 2024 update, and most specifically the new funds committed, counting of pledge commitments, will be implemented on a rolling basis as the surveys come online. You can see some dates here on the screen. The Voluntary Support of Education opens in June. Canada opens this year. DAZL, which is our partnership with the National Association of Independent Schools, the U.S. Independent School Survey will be this summer. Campaign Survey will be in September. UK Ireland will be August. And Australia and New Zealand will be January 2025. For more specific information on how it will affect the survey you are responding to, you should check out the survey documentation. We're in the process of updating all that survey documentation so that it reflects the most current edition of the standards. And I know within some surveys, some questions are still optional and some questions now are required and your survey documentation's going to give you the best information on all of that. What's next? You should get a subscription to the Case Global Reporting Standards Digital Edition. You should consider taking the Case Global Reporting Standards Training Course. It is a self-directed course that would qualify up to 10.75 hours of CFRE credit. And in the US, CFRE is a certification that people can apply to. It's the Certified Fundraising Executive. I think that's the right. The updates to the training course are coming soon. Those of you who are currently in the training course, nothing's changed. You're not going to have to go back and retake tests or anything. And we will let all participants know when those changes have taken effect. The other perk of taking the Standards Training Course is that you receive a digital badge that you can post on your social media and for your own professional development that you too are a standards scholar. And then we would also love for all of you to participate in our case surveys. As I mentioned before, there's a bit of a rolling schedule in terms of when they open. Every survey has kind of a kickoff webinar. And as you complete your surveys, you can always reach out to CASE or reach out to me if you have any questions about how you apply your fundraising performance to these surveys. And upcoming standards update member webinars, all of you who decided to either join us during the day or get up really early or stay up really late, we appreciate you. We appreciate you taking your time to spend with CASE to learn something that will hopefully expand your professional development and your careers within the profession of advancement. We are going to be repeating this webinar tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern. So tell your friends, tell your colleagues, and you will get to see Cara and I again. That session as well will be recorded and we will make them available. Last poll question just is asking, are you interested in a follow-up from a CASE team member? This is just if you have additional questions or you need some one-on-one advice. Not required, not mandatory in any way. And we will be tackling some of the questions that have been coming in here. I could answer you as we go, but I've left some of the ones I think more people would want to hear answers to to now. Great. Yeah, I think we can, there we go. Yeah, I was hoping we'd have time for questions. It's just, I personally have never done a webinar this big. So I'm really thankful you all decided to join. If we can't get to all of the questions, I know we still have some time left. We will definitely reach out to people after the session. Are you ready for some now, Cindy? I can start with some. One question is, how are contingent bequest intentions counted? So it's like a bequest that's a conditional pledge. I would say if you have documentation and as a, as a, it is determined that the conditions will be met and the donor is at least 65 years of age or older, you can count it. There is a section in the standard specific to conditional pledges. And it does say that if, once the higher ups or your chief advancement officer determines that, you know, the majority or the preponderance of those conditions will be met, then that can be counted. So this is kind of a combination of the two. All right, I'll take the next one, which is, is it's a conditional pledge which is, is it still considered best practice for outright pledges to have a five to seven year term despite the change in how we count them? Yes, it is still considered best practice. You need to determine within your team, what is the, what works best for you. We just are going to how we're counting and benchmarking and tracking things in our systems. The best practice for ensuring you're most likely to get the pledge payments versus the stewardship and those pieces is still to really think about the amount of pledge that you can manage, but it just doesn't have the same impact on the reporting behind it. And there is a very, very, very small percentage of gifts that are longer than the seven years and, you know, can be very complex. And so that captures those types of gifts as well. And the work that teams, you know, working towards those commitments, they get credit for that as well. So the next question, and I think this is a point, a couple of people had questions on, is what do you do if you have pledges that are greater than five years commitment length? Would you still enter the years for greater years in upcoming reports or wait to year six? And I think that a lot of the changes we are making take away the need for that entirely, but maybe could you talk to that a little bit more, Cindy? Yes. First of all, I wanna say thank you to everyone who went through their systems starting in 2021 and made those changes to split pledges apart. We realize and acknowledge what a huge amount of effort that was for institutions. I would say moving forward, you could count for new pledges, obviously count the entire amount. For pledges where you are waiting on year six and seven. I think it just goes into new funds received, we're really taking away that piece. So we're sorry that you put in that effort, but it'll make it much clearer going forward. That way new funds committed really just is, this is the activity of this year. But you still will count those payments whenever they happen. Like you, I mean, if you get year six and seven tomorrow, then you can count the entire value of six and seven in this year's pledge payments. Okay. Here's another question. If the standards are going to be changed and updated on a more regular recurring basis, what is our suggestion for how to compare results year over year? And also what consideration goes into work advancement services team to do each time to update comes out. So the first thing we do is I will say that in our surveys, we're very careful with how we're comparing things year over year, where we can make a comparison, where we make a comparison with some notes of pieces that changed and where we sometimes ask a supplemental question to be able to do some analysis year over year to be able to see the variations. And there's different pieces that you can do within your systems as well. The main thing I would say is to note when there are significant changes that impact any of the work that you're doing so you can explain the variation. And often there's a way of doing some different pieces there. Also, what consideration goes into the work of advancement services team? When an update comes out, a lot of consideration goes into that because many of us have been in your shoes on that. I would say we balance out two different things. Level of angst that the current conditions are causing and the extra work that they're causing versus the extra work of the change. And then that determines how quickly or how slowly we roll out a change. And this is something that as we're making more frequent updates, you'll see things more frequently. And there'll be some pieces that may have a longer lead time versus a shorter one as we weigh those options. The most, the thing is, is we wanna keep things current to the field. All right, for you, Cindy. In the pledge write-off slide, was there reporting mentioned on the amount of fiscal year for the write-off? I know we're not going to make changes in previous reports, but is there a current fiscal year pledge write-off on that slide? No, there's no, there's no language about what the pledge write-off is. The only real change is that you don't need to go back and change your data submission to case surveys and that you should make your decisions regarding pledge write-offs in consultation with your business office, your auditors, your accounting policies. Yeah, and the only thing I'd add to that is when you're completing the survey, use the most accurate information that you have on the pledges made in that year. Is there a link to that what's new document you can share? It is in the end of the digital edition. And I don't know if you're talking about the what's new document for 2021 or the what's new document for 2024, but both of those are at the end of the digital edition. Okay, our team disagrees, that happens a lot with data, on how to report the value of a bequest as a stated percentage. What can, where can we find clarity on if these should be bequest expectations or how to value them when recording in the CRF? The standard section on bequests is 3.6. I don't have it in front of me, but if you want to email me the question, I can look it up. But I know it has something about, if the donor's 65, you have written documentation of the bequest and you know you're getting a percentage and you have a value for the estate, then you can count that percentage value as a commitment. If you do not have a value, like I'm gonna give you 10% of everything I have, but you don't know what that value is, then the recommendation is to put a value of zero until a value is known. You can't count it unless you have some way of evaluating it. Great. And I don't have the sections of standards memorized, like Cindy, but some of you may. Where can we access the PDF of the educational philanthropy definition you referenced? The educational philanthropy definition is at case.org slash standards. And then if you look on the left-hand side of the screen, there is an FAQ for standards. It's at the very beginning of that. And I encourage you just to get familiar with a lot of the different resources on that page. That's another thing that we've been updating fairly frequently. And I'm seeing that there's also some questions in the chat. Let me jump to those, since we do still have a couple of minutes. Ooh, a DAF question. I knew we couldn't do a standards update without a DAF. If a donor signs a letter of intent to request a distribution from their DAF, is it counted as new funds committed? What is considered to be enough documentation to establish the values of a donor's estate for recording value? I'm going to do the second part of the question first, because it's easier. The case global reporting standards does not provide specifics on the exact kinds of documentation you need for a bequest. It just says you need written documentation. So I would reach out to your institution's business office for more specifics on that. Donor advised funds, everyone's favorite topic. Currently, the IRS still does not permit the use of monies from a donor advised fund to pay off a personal pledge. We have a lot of where you give credit to. I'm just trying to- Oh my gosh, yes. So look for those pieces. And we will get to the... Yeah, I'm seeing there's another question in the chat on FROs, and we will answer that if anyone wants to stay on for that. Oh, the fundraising organization? Yeah, so the commitment, I think that the letter of intent, and someone did answer that they wouldn't count it in the commitment. I think it would depend on the threshold of what is considered documentation at your institution if you have... In order to know if it's counted in new funds committed or just in funds received when it comes in. We're happy to take that one up in more detail. Yeah. But sometimes we need the specifics on some of those pieces. Because the DAF, it needs to be coming from the DAF itself. And then let's go to this focused research organization question, and we can come back to the other question if we have more thoughts. Are there any specific guidelines for working with FROs? What are the standards for pledge and payment, pledge payment counting on donations from focused research organizations? And more generally, how are gifts involving FROs structured? What does a typical FRO gift look like? You're a vocability accelerator. Thank you. Well, in terms of, sponsored research or gifts to your organization, the big questions are, is who owns the intellectual property that is the outcome of the work? And if the organization owns it, then it is not considered a philanthropic gift. And then there's also, if the sponsoring organization says, no, the IP intellectual property needs to go out into the common good, then you can count it as philanthropic. But in terms of the specifics, it's not in the standards and it's not something I personally would feel comfortable trying to answer. I would recommend, and this is a shout out to the case online communities, there is an advancement services topical community and there are about 7,000 people in there. You can post your question, reach out to your colleagues and they may be able to help you with an answer. But yeah, I'm not a lawyer or a tax attorney or an accountant, so I can't answer any of those legal questions. And I just wanna highlight that all of your on the spot questions highlight the nature of the work with standards that we're always jumping through and looking for the reference, coming back to it, circling around. I will note that Gina, thank you, had the reference I was trying to remember on DAFs on the letter of intent to record a donor's intention to request distribution from a DAF is sufficient documentation, section 6.3.1, going back to that question. So thank you for that. We really appreciate all of the questions you send us, all of the feedback. We try to keep this up to date, moving forward, responding to the emerging trends that we see in the field. And we appreciate all of your willingness to engage with us, ask tough questions and keep learning and growing with us. So we are here to help you and we do all of this work for you and really appreciate the way you are active participants in shaping the standards in our profession. And thanks for spending an hour and two minutes with us today. Thank you, everyone.
Video Summary
In this video transcript, Cara Jacketmany and Cindy Moon Barna from CASE discuss the updates made to the CASE Global Reporting Standards in 2024. They emphasize the importance of standards in the profession of advancement, particularly in educational philanthropy. They introduce themselves and their roles in maintaining and updating the standards. They highlight the changes in counting new funds committed, the handling of pledge write-offs, and the clarity provided on different kinds of pledges and commitments. They address questions on various topics such as bequests, donor-advised funds, and gifts involving focused research organizations. They also mention additional resources available, such as the standards training course and upcoming case surveys. Overall, the speakers emphasize the importance of staying current with the standards, the need for clarity in reporting, and the continuous improvement of practices in advancement.
Keywords
CASE Global Reporting Standards
advancement profession
educational philanthropy
standards updates
new funds committed
pledge write-offs
different kinds of pledges
bequests
donor-advised funds
focused research organizations
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