<b>All right. Welcome to the session. Gift</b> <b>compliance, Tackling underutilized funds.</b> <b>Before we get started, I just have a few</b> <b>housekeeping notes. On the right hand of</b> <b>your screen you will see a window with a</b> <b>Chat, Q&A, Feedback, and Notes tab.</b> <b>You can use the chat box to chat with</b> <b>other attendees, but please use the Q&A</b> <b>to send questions in for the presenters.</b> <b>You can also upvote questions in the Q&A</b> <b>panel. If you would like to see a</b> <b>question answered at the end of the</b> <b>session, we will answer as many questions</b> <b>as we can. The note tabs is there. For</b> <b>you to keep your own notes during the</b> <b>session. If you would like to, please</b> <b>join me in welcoming our presenter Saskia</b> <b>and Shannon.</b> <b>Fabulous. Thank you very much.</b> <b>Let me see. Yes, here we go.</b> <b>Well. Hello everybody across</b> <b>the globe, I think I am Saskia</b> <b>Sawyer, the Assistant Vice President for</b> <b>Gift Services at the University of</b> <b>Colorado Foundation in Denver</b> <b>, Colorado joined here by Shannon. Shannon.</b> <b>Hi, I'm Shannon McBratney, and I'm the</b> <b>Director of the Compliance for the CU</b> <b>Foundation.</b> <b>We both have been at the CU foundation</b> <b>for almost 8 years, right around 8 years,</b> <b>so. Been been a good</b> <b>ride. The</b> <b>University of Colorado Foundation</b> <b>is CU's or University of</b> <b>Colorado Institutional Related</b> <b>Foundation were founded in</b> <b>1967 as a separate</b> <b>501C3. And we do</b> <b>not fundraise. Currently, fundraising</b> <b>operations have moved back to campus.</b> <b>No, no, no, nine years ago. But we</b> <b>do receive and</b> <b>receipt and manage all the</b> <b>donations that are coming in for the for</b> <b>the support of the University of</b> <b>Colorado. We invested, we</b> <b>manage and then we make sure that the</b> <b>money that comes in goes to where it is</b> <b>supposed to go.</b> <b>Just a little bit about about</b> <b>CU and the CEO Foundation</b> <b>. 2022 brought us over</b> <b>78,000 gifts that we</b> <b>processed our</b> <b>endowment. We have about</b> <b>4000 current funds, about</b> <b>3000 endowed funds I believe at this</b> <b>point we have about</b> <b>1.8485 billion</b> <b>in that endowment and for about 2.7</b> <b>billion under management. These numbers</b> <b>are if I. I'm not mistaken from September</b> <b>last year.</b> <b>So what are we going to do today? We want</b> <b>to kind of get you on a journey</b> <b>to see how we at the</b> <b>Foundation at Sea Foundation</b> <b>tackled the.</b> <b>Very important topic of</b> <b>underutilized funds. So funds that have</b> <b>been sitting stagnant and are not being</b> <b>used. We are going to show you how</b> <b>we identified the problem, tackled</b> <b>it. Solved it or we're</b> <b>still solving I guess. Um,</b> <b>kind of tell you what the outcome of all</b> <b>this work was and give you some</b> <b>takeaways to take home and?</b> <b>Started on in your own shop.</b> <b>Shannon, Are you ready? I'm ready,</b> <b>alright.</b> <b>So just so we're on the same page, we</b> <b>want to just be clear about the terms</b> <b>we're using. So when we say gift</b> <b>compliance, that means that we can</b> <b>meet the terms of an agreement.</b> <b>Before the funds come in the door and</b> <b>then also once they're in the door. So</b> <b>that means that we're not agreeing to</b> <b>anything that we can't do per IRS</b> <b>policy and university policy.</b> <b>And then also once the money gets here,</b> <b>we want to make sure that the university</b> <b>partners can actually spend those funds</b> <b>and that they're being spent in line with</b> <b>donor intents and in a timely manner.</b> <b>We timely manner to us means usually</b> <b>between three and five years. And</b> <b>underutilized funds, again, that means</b> <b>funds that are stagnant, they're not</b> <b>being spent for</b> <b>endowments. That looks like a</b> <b>distribution that has a large balance</b> <b>on the distribution that's being</b> <b>suspended. It can also look like a fund</b> <b>manager. There's nobody assigned to that</b> <b>fund. There's nobody looking at it. And</b> <b>we also hear the terms rainy day fund or</b> <b>my money that usually closes into</b> <b>underutilized fund.</b> <b>Oops. Here we</b> <b>go. Sorry Shannon. No worries. See</b> <b>this full graphic. I know.</b> <b>So common contributing factors to</b> <b>underutilized problems from what we've</b> <b>noticed over the past eight or so years.</b> <b>It can again look like nobody's assigned</b> <b>to that fact. So there's no university</b> <b>partner assigned as a fund manager.</b> <b>Nobody's looking at that fund.</b> <b>There's a lack of spending because</b> <b>something has changed, so that is often</b> <b>funds that are a little older.</b> <b>It means like sometimes a program doesn't</b> <b>exist anymore or it's changed to the</b> <b>point where they can't spend out of that</b> <b>fund or major has changed, like</b> <b>newspaper major in journalism, they</b> <b>could have a problem spending that lack</b> <b>of transparency. Is Delaware going to</b> <b>talk about the most today? So that means</b> <b>that on the university side, they</b> <b>literally just can't see what that fund</b> <b>should actually be used for. So the</b> <b>purpose is unclear due to a lack of</b> <b>information. From lack of</b> <b>training. Sometimes university partners</b> <b>just don't know that we exist or that we</b> <b>have gift funds and we're gift funds</b> <b>fund, fund or why they should be used.</b> <b>Umm. Silos. I know nobody here has this</b> <b>problem, but here at the University of</b> <b>Colorado, sometimes we see silos. Our</b> <b>campuses are so huge that sometimes</b> <b>people just get into their own little</b> <b>silo and they don't know that we exist</b> <b>and that they can reach out to us. And</b> <b>also the US versus them,</b> <b>you know you're the foundation, you're</b> <b>over there to look at our buildings are</b> <b>gift funds were fine.</b> <b>So why does this matter? Why does it</b> <b>matter to spend our gift funds?</b> <b>We often like to use the example.</b> <b>If your local newspaper has the title the</b> <b>headline that said millions of dollars in</b> <b>scholarship money being withheld from</b> <b>students, that would not look good.</b> <b>So what could happen is you could lose</b> <b>trust with your donors. Your donors might</b> <b>not want to give to your institution</b> <b>because they don't trust you'll actually</b> <b>spend it, which will affect your</b> <b>reputation and you could lose</b> <b>future funding. We always like to say you</b> <b>can't ask for more money if you're not</b> <b>spending the money you already have.</b> <b>And on a bigger scale you could do lose.</b> <b>Your nonprofit status and you could have</b> <b>potential lawsuit, which could be</b> <b>devastating for your institution, so it</b> <b>matters a lot. Underutilized funds are</b> <b>really a donor stewardship issue.</b> <b>So. We identified the problem, right?</b> <b>So now look at let's look at it what</b> <b>we I know this first, so when Shannon</b> <b>and I started. Kind of</b> <b>thinking through what gift</b> <b>compliance could be should be.</b> <b>It really was 4 areas that.</b> <b>Stood out to us and we knew that we</b> <b>had to kind of get into those</b> <b>transparency. Shannon already mentioned</b> <b>that and we will be mentioning that a</b> <b>lot. Right. If if you don't know that you</b> <b>have a gift fund, If you don't know what</b> <b>you can spend it on, I cannot.</b> <b>Be upset with you that you're not</b> <b>spending it. Right. If if you don't</b> <b>know that we exist and there's a reason</b> <b>and there is actually a donor behind the</b> <b>purpose. I can't blame you.</b> <b>Technology. If you don't have the</b> <b>tools on the ability to</b> <b>actually access information.</b> <b>You will have a hard time</b> <b>spending and I again can't be upset.</b> <b>Training as when anything right. You can</b> <b>have transparency, you can have</b> <b>technology, but if you don't know how to</b> <b>use those tools or what to do and how to</b> <b>use them and where to find them. That is</b> <b>not good. And all of this</b> <b>actually does need staff. So here we</b> <b>were, Shannon and I8 years ago. Looking</b> <b>at each other, it's like, well. Those are</b> <b>really big areas of of</b> <b>trying to tackle or kind of build this</b> <b>compliance program and it's just the two</b> <b>of us. So,</b> <b>well, shocker, we started with staff.</b> <b>And the advantage of a small</b> <b>organization is that we were able to make</b> <b>our case that we needed more</b> <b>FTE to tackle this and we were</b> <b>really fortunate that we</b> <b>overtime we started with what well the</b> <b>two of us now we have 5-5 people</b> <b>dedicated to compliance. We could</b> <b>probably use a couple more people to be</b> <b>quite honest, but we're well oiled</b> <b>machine and we are very grateful to have</b> <b>5 dedicated to this.</b> <b>Cause. And when I</b> <b>started. It was the regular</b> <b>typical structure in the US</b> <b>for for gift gift compliance or</b> <b>gift management, right. You have gifts</b> <b>and records under a person, in</b> <b>this case me, you we had.</b> <b>Gift administration that kind of handles</b> <b>gift agreements, we split that sort of</b> <b>off and now really we only have gift</b> <b>management on the foundation side. The</b> <b>donor record keeping has</b> <b>moved over to the university. So we do</b> <b>not do that area actually</b> <b>anymore, but have added again the</b> <b>donor or gift compliance. So we're</b> <b>total of 21</b> <b>people now at the foundation.</b> <b>So we are pretty small shock given the</b> <b>size of our endowment and</b> <b>the number of funds.</b> <b>Now. When you hear compliance, the first</b> <b>thing usually that comes to mind is not.</b> <b>Happy thoughts, right, Shannon, we. For</b> <b>the longest time, UM contemplated not</b> <b>using the word compliance actually as</b> <b>our, you know, in our titles or in our</b> <b>team name. Because people immediately</b> <b>think of, Oh my goodness rules, rules,</b> <b>rules. Umm.</b> <b>But her and I were from the get go on the</b> <b>same page of this this notion of you</b> <b>need to do the right thing even when</b> <b>nobody's looking. So that's culture of</b> <b>compliance is really something that's</b> <b>deeply ingrained in the two of us and</b> <b>we've been very successful spreading</b> <b>that to not only our staff but</b> <b>also everybody at the foundation.</b> <b>And it starts with.</b> <b>Having standards right,</b> <b>Knowing policy and procedures. Being</b> <b>transparent. Again, this is our</b> <b>favorite theme because.</b> <b>If you're not transparent and people</b> <b>don't. Starting not to trust you because</b> <b>they don't know what you're going to</b> <b>answer. The one thing we really have</b> <b>done very well is we have very</b> <b>predictable. Actually you will</b> <b>usually get what I'm saying usual because</b> <b>not everything is black and white in our</b> <b>world as you all know. But same</b> <b>situation, you will hear the same answer.</b> <b>Right. We will point</b> <b>you to the same policies. We will point</b> <b>you to the same answer that we have given</b> <b>in the past to make sure that you</b> <b>know what you can expect.</b> <b>We have provided a</b> <b>lot of communication and education.</b> <b>We have changed how the foundation, for</b> <b>example. Releases,</b> <b>distribution amounts,</b> <b>timing, right. So we're really working</b> <b>with our campus partners to.</b> <b>To help them help themselves as we are</b> <b>all in it together, right?</b> <b>And yes, we monitor, yes, we</b> <b>audit, we certainly do that. But we do</b> <b>that for everybody's</b> <b>benefit, right. We, we</b> <b>don't have anything to hide and we want</b> <b>you to trust us.</b> <b>And by us knowing</b> <b>that you have the tools and you know what</b> <b>to expect, we can all work a lot Better</b> <b>Together. So you have consistent and</b> <b>predictable. That's we should</b> <b>have that in our signature line. Actually</b> <b>Shannon, I like that.</b> <b>One thing especially a small shop and</b> <b>especially if we if you don't have</b> <b>fundraising on your side and</b> <b>we've always struggled and I think it's</b> <b>part of the back office and advancement</b> <b>is always this how do we fit in right</b> <b>what do we do? Why is it important and.</b> <b>It's not only for our staff, but it's</b> <b>also for our campus staff. It's also for</b> <b>advancement. How do we all fit together</b> <b>well?Of course, as the</b> <b>institutional related foundation, we of</b> <b>course exist to support the mission of</b> <b>the university. Advancement</b> <b>exists to fundraise for that mission.</b> <b>To you, our university of course</b> <b>exists to educate the next generation</b> <b>right, conduct research, doing all the</b> <b>great things that donors love to</b> <b>support, and we're so grateful for their</b> <b>support. So all of us.</b> <b>Work together to power CU.</b> <b>Just another little stat for those who</b> <b>don't know the University of Colorado. If</b> <b>you're out of Colorado, you probably</b> <b>don't. But we have over</b> <b>36,000 employees, over</b> <b>66,000 students and over</b> <b>half a million alumni, so it is a</b> <b>big, big driver.</b> <b>And. We all are here.</b> <b>To move it forward cogs in the wheel.</b> <b>Shannon. OK. We've got</b> <b>about 5 questions and a little queue.</b> <b>Try to answer some of these real fast.</b> <b>Or should we wait? I don't see the</b> <b>questions. All right. Looks like</b> <b>the first one is just what do you</b> <b>consider a large balance? So it's in</b> <b>terms of the distribution of an</b> <b>endowment we consider a large balance of</b> <b>about. Again</b> <b>3. To five years of</b> <b>distributions coming in, nothing coming</b> <b>out. So that means that.</b> <b>Their balance is so large, it's going to</b> <b>be very hard for them to spend that down.</b> <b>That's what we mean by a large balance.</b> <b>And have we encountered by managers that</b> <b>have a scarcity mentality, they're</b> <b>afraid that the money will be gone</b> <b>forever and avoid spending in case of</b> <b>future needs? Absolutely. That's probably</b> <b>one of the biggest reasons we have</b> <b>underutilized funds, right?But</b> <b>again, we say you know the donors</b> <b>received a tax benefit or</b> <b>for donating that year, they need to be</b> <b>spending within that year, regional</b> <b>amount within that year. So it's</b> <b>definitely something we come across.</b> <b>So we got a couple of questions about the</b> <b>fund manager position. Fund managers,</b> <b>When we say fund managers, we mean people</b> <b>on campus who are at those schools,</b> <b>colleges, departments who are actually</b> <b>spending out of those gift funds, they</b> <b>are considered our end user.</b> <b>Our finance team is about</b> <b>7 people, some of the bigger. It's the</b> <b>biggest department at the foundation.</b> <b>I'm just going to answer a couple more</b> <b>and then we're going to move on.</b> <b>I think we're going to get to some of</b> <b>these as we get further into our</b> <b>and our presentation. Um,</b> <b>especially around the building</b> <b>relationships. So we're going to get to</b> <b>that and that is one of the biggest.</b> <b>Factors in our success. So I'm going to</b> <b>keep going through now, but please</b> <b>continue to ask this question. We are</b> <b>watching. So</b> <b>Fast and I are sitting staring at</b> <b>ourselves wondering how we are going to</b> <b>do this. So again we decided to</b> <b>tackle that lack of transparency piece.</b> <b>1st. And we knew that</b> <b>the again, those fund managers are end</b> <b>users. We just knew that they didn't have</b> <b>enough of the data they needed to</b> <b>actually spend. So they had about one</b> <b>sentence in one code. For an</b> <b>entire gift agreement, this is not</b> <b>enough, so we decided to focus on that.</b> <b>And we wanted to, again, make it</b> <b>easy for a fund manager who</b> <b>probably doesn't have access to that gift</b> <b>agreement to get the full picture of how</b> <b>that fund needed to be used. So</b> <b>we started doing a big giant</b> <b>audit of all of our funds. And during</b> <b>that audit we started extrapolating</b> <b>data. So we started looking at our funds</b> <b>and started to think about what would be.</b> <b>A good data quality. What would be</b> <b>searchable? What would people really need</b> <b>to know? And we looked at</b> <b>exceptions, purpose and deliverables. And</b> <b>again, we needed to build our compliance</b> <b>data so we could do all these wonderful</b> <b>things.</b> <b>So we started looking.</b> <b>At our fund, when we started to develop</b> <b>all of our data points, we ended up</b> <b>coming up with over 200.</b> <b>And this is kind of an example of what</b> <b>that process looked like. So in the</b> <b>middle of our little mascot is named</b> <b>Gaddy, and he's a gift agreement. And the</b> <b>gift agreement is going to tell you</b> <b>everything that fund can be used for.</b> <b>It's going to tell you what kind of fund</b> <b>it is. Should it not distribute till</b> <b>it's a certain amount?Is there an</b> <b>alternative use club? Should it convert</b> <b>when it had served in that? What's the</b> <b>purpose? Is it a scholarship? Does it</b> <b>have award criteria? Is there a report</b> <b>due at some point? So every single fund</b> <b>we looked at again, that was about 3000</b> <b>endowments, 4000 current use funds?</b> <b>We extrapolated and coded every single</b> <b>one into our database with all of these</b> <b>data points. And we started to build a</b> <b>search platform and we started to build a</b> <b>report again for those end</b> <b>users in the platform that they</b> <b>have access to.</b> <b>So here what you're seeing is the search</b> <b>platform. So now after</b> <b>these years of auditing and adding all</b> <b>these data points, a fund manager</b> <b>on their campus, sitting in their</b> <b>department, they can find every</b> <b>single fund that's quoted to them.</b> <b>That's a scholarship that</b> <b>has an award criteria of 3.0</b> <b>, GPAand they could put all</b> <b>of these data points that they want. Run</b> <b>this report and it'll give them a list of</b> <b>every single funds. That falls</b> <b>into that criteria and. It</b> <b>will also give you the fun purpose report</b> <b>which stock is going to show you now.</b> <b>And here we are back to transparency</b> <b>again, something, as you can tell by now,</b> <b>something we feel very strongly about.</b> <b>The technology helps that</b> <b>transparency, right? It really</b> <b>supports it. So the data points that</b> <b>Shannon just pointed out, um,</b> <b>that we developed and we entered into a</b> <b>huge database. This is the report.</b> <b>Our pride and joy. The fund purpose</b> <b>report that spits it out. So</b> <b>this is all you need to run to</b> <b>know everything you need to know about</b> <b>a specific fund. Both endowments and</b> <b>current funds. As Shannon said, you</b> <b>can search for specific students your</b> <b>unit wants to support. You</b> <b>can find out how many.</b> <b>Music or flute? We do have a</b> <b>flute scholarship. You</b> <b>have because you have students that are</b> <b>applying and you need to see they need</b> <b>financial aid. What is out there?All of</b> <b>this without having to find the legal</b> <b>documentation or a copy thereof,</b> <b>without having to get access to the</b> <b>advancement database that houses these</b> <b>documents. Because again, we are a huge,</b> <b>huge campus and the information,</b> <b>these, the gift agreements are actually</b> <b>not accessible for everybody, simply from</b> <b>an access standpoint. So again, this</b> <b>anybody has access. That has</b> <b>this managing money has access to the</b> <b>information.</b> <b>So yes, you know what to what you can</b> <b>spend it on. Well, if you're a fund</b> <b>manager, you certainly want to know how</b> <b>much you have to spend on. So these</b> <b>funds these reports now are are actually</b> <b>linked. You can click you will see up</b> <b>here the little blue line fund purpose</b> <b>report on your on your gift fund</b> <b>statement. What, Where it tells you what</b> <b>the distributions are, how much money you</b> <b>have to spend. You can click</b> <b>immediately over and get the purpose and</b> <b>vice versa. This sounds very easy, but</b> <b>that was huge. You choose</b> <b>choose and years in the making because of</b> <b>the sharing of data, right? It goes into</b> <b>a warehouse and a data warehouse where</b> <b>these reports are built, which was not</b> <b>possible before before us actually</b> <b>forging these relationships and the trust</b> <b>to make data</b> <b>available to a wider audience that</b> <b>usually would not see the individualdata.</b> <b>And then this is pretty cool.</b> <b>We have financial compliance reporting.</b> <b>This now will tell you actually how much</b> <b>money has been spent. It's a very simple</b> <b>report, mainly because we</b> <b>we're we're still playing around with it</b> <b>and hoping to have a lot of the resources</b> <b>after the pandemic and all of that.</b> <b>Focusing on this report, we're thinking</b> <b>of having it more visually appealing so</b> <b>that a Dean for example could run all</b> <b>the gift funds that are under under him</b> <b>and quickly can see maybe with some sort</b> <b>of. Um, traffic light, right.</b> <b>It shows up red which will indicate that</b> <b>it hasn't been spent, hasn't been</b> <b>utilized or yellow, it's fine green it's</b> <b>been actually the the funny the</b> <b>funny. The money is coming in, money is</b> <b>going out. But this is a simple</b> <b>report that we currently have and a</b> <b>very happy because again this was a heavy</b> <b>lift and. At least we</b> <b>have something that. Will tell you</b> <b>if you are spending or not.</b> <b>Now this is all after the fact, right?</b> <b>The fund is established, is funded, money</b> <b>is in it, money comes in and out.</b> <b>Another thing when we were looking at.</b> <b>The Why are these underutilized funds</b> <b>happening?It really</b> <b>occurred to us that we have way too many</b> <b>folks. Right. And there was number,</b> <b>rhyme or reason. There were no standards.</b> <b>If you remember that little graph of</b> <b>what like this culture of compliance</b> <b>is for us, it's standards, its</b> <b>policies, procedures,</b> <b>transparency, so that there was no</b> <b>standard to set up a gift fund.</b> <b>You could e-mail our accounting</b> <b>department and like, hey, I want a gift</b> <b>one for my friend and they probably would</b> <b>set it up. That's exaggerated, but</b> <b>it really depended who you talk to or who</b> <b>was asking. Anything went there was</b> <b>no ever really a</b> <b>requirement of gift documentation.</b> <b>Where we really could nail down the donor</b> <b>purpose or even could figure out down the</b> <b>road like who is it this up and what are</b> <b>they trying to support? And they were</b> <b>duplications of funds because there was</b> <b>just no due diligence done before</b> <b>we managed to make this completely</b> <b>automated in the sense of</b> <b>central using technology.</b> <b>Transparency, because anybody could, I</b> <b>mean advancement could access that. And</b> <b>you could see where a fund request is in</b> <b>in the stage. Our</b> <b>campus partners in the controller's</b> <b>offices. Got e-mail</b> <b>notifications?So all of a</b> <b>sudden the team that was</b> <b>actually having to manage these</b> <b>funds where on the same page.</b> <b>Like it or not, they all got the same</b> <b>information. They all knew that a new</b> <b>fund was requested, They all knew what it</b> <b>was for. They all knew that the fund now</b> <b>was established and needed to be spent.</b> <b>This was an absolute 1st and it</b> <b>helped us really</b> <b>set up high quality funds,</b> <b>right documentation, standardized</b> <b>purpose language, standardized titles, so</b> <b>naming conventions. And</b> <b>transparency.</b> <b>This is just an example of the emails</b> <b>that are going out. So again, anybody who</b> <b>has has interest in this fund</b> <b>will get through the stages</b> <b>notifications and I also want to point</b> <b>out that we required anybody on campus to</b> <b>go through our advancement parking</b> <b>partners. So because a gift</b> <b>fund should only be set up for</b> <b>fundraising. It's a gift fund,</b> <b>so we really wanted to make sure that our</b> <b>campus partners that had in the past like</b> <b>to go around it or just didn't know, had</b> <b>to work with advancement to ensure that</b> <b>their fund and their reasoning for a new</b> <b>gift fund actually fit into the</b> <b>fundraising. Plan for that unit,</b> <b>school or so on and so forth.</b> <b>As I said earlier, so this is, you know,</b> <b>our last quadrant, the training. You can</b> <b>build all kinds of stuff, but if nobody</b> <b>knows where it is or that it exists or</b> <b>how to use it. It is a waste of time and</b> <b>money. So.</b> <b>Again, transparency and consistency. So</b> <b>we really wanted to make sure that our</b> <b>partners and our partners is advancement</b> <b>of course campus partners. Fund</b> <b>managers, professors.</b> <b>So on and so forth, but also our team</b> <b>at the CEO foundation. Now our team we</b> <b>have sort of control over Shannon sort</b> <b>of, but our our finance folks, our</b> <b>CEO. So we wanted to make sure</b> <b>everybody knows where to find</b> <b>information. We get given a lot of</b> <b>presentations and trainings, but we also</b> <b>invested a lot of time and effort into</b> <b>FAQ's training videos.</b> <b>Umm. Town halls</b> <b>and just being out there</b> <b>creating.</b> <b>An environment where it's easy to access,</b> <b>have access to us we created.</b> <b>General e-mail addresses. Andthat's not</b> <b>a novel idea, but we did have one. But</b> <b>we created a compliance at ceofund.</b> <b>org. Where people can really</b> <b>easily reach out.</b> <b>It really increased.</b> <b>Internal communication, even on a small</b> <b>scale within our office. You'll</b> <b>remember that Pandemic, Pandemic, that</b> <b>happens. We actually had signed up for a</b> <b>project management tool right before</b> <b>it saved us because we were able to be in</b> <b>a platform together while not in the</b> <b>office and having full</b> <b>transparency. For the first time ever, we</b> <b>knew who was working on what because gift</b> <b>funds touched everybody in our small</b> <b>foundation, right? We reviewed them,</b> <b>somebody signed it, then accounting had</b> <b>to set it up and they had to manage their</b> <b>money and all of a sudden. Everybody saw</b> <b>the same information at the same time.</b> <b>Fabulous.</b> <b>And then you know the problem is solved,</b> <b>Shannon. Yeah, solving</b> <b>the problem in quotes. Umm.</b> <b>So I mean under utilized funds still</b> <b>happened to you, it's not ever going to</b> <b>go away, but that problem is.</b> <b>Much better and we feel like we are in</b> <b>much better communication with everyone,</b> <b>which helps. The bottom</b> <b>line, so again, how did we do those?</b> <b>I want to take you back to our culture of</b> <b>compliance that we created when we first</b> <b>started this. And that really</b> <b>guided the decisions that were made.</b> <b>So again, creating the predictable</b> <b>environment. So someone knows</b> <b>every time they come to us and ask for</b> <b>change and purpose, we're always going to</b> <b>ask for written donor approval. So</b> <b>that predictability creates training</b> <b>and helps train people so they know I'm</b> <b>just going to give you this written donor</b> <b>approval before we even ask the question.</b> <b>That's our culture of compliance. And</b> <b>we did this. And I'm not going to go</b> <b>through each of these, but. One</b> <b>thing we haven't talked about yet is our</b> <b>gift agreement template. So every single</b> <b>agreement has the same policies, it's</b> <b>it's slide out the same way. All you have</b> <b>to do is plug in what your gift is, the</b> <b>same every time. And our</b> <b>policies, our policies are.</b> <b>And written out, I know there's</b> <b>questions about, well, how do you know</b> <b>what's underutilized? That's a very big</b> <b>nationwide question. But again, we have</b> <b>both policies around. Who</b> <b>approves what? How does that workflow go?</b> <b>What will we do, what we not do? Again,</b> <b>it's very predictable. And we also worked</b> <b>with different. Apartments</b> <b>on the university side, so the university</b> <b>side has a compliance person</b> <b>in their controllers office, so we make</b> <b>contact with them or in regular contact</b> <b>with them if something comes up and then</b> <b>something's not being spent right. We</b> <b>will go to them and say, can you</b> <b>investigate this on your side as well?</b> <b>Um, training again. Let's not get talked</b> <b>about. We do a lot of we've done a</b> <b>lot of webinars during</b> <b>the pandemic and that helped. And</b> <b>train people. Even though we couldn't go</b> <b>to campus, we're starting to go to campus</b> <b>again and see people in person and have</b> <b>office hours. And that's really, really</b> <b>great too. So again, creating that</b> <b>culture of compliance is helping to solve</b> <b>the problem long term.</b> <b>OK, so this road to success, we don't</b> <b>want you to think that this just happened</b> <b>overnight. That is not true. It took</b> <b>many years. So again</b> <b>, 2016 we kind of started to</b> <b>formulate the gift compliance department</b> <b>just to ask you and I, we started our our</b> <b>audit work. Our</b> <b>audit work kind of developed into a</b> <b>giant undertaking, so we were able to</b> <b>hire more staff in 2017.</b> <b>And then by April 2018, we've finished</b> <b>auditing the endowments and we started to</b> <b>really see the data we had and we</b> <b>were really able to start thinking about</b> <b>this report, what it was going to look</b> <b>like, what our search platform was going</b> <b>to look like. And then in May of</b> <b>2019, the fun purpose report</b> <b>was released to the fund managers,</b> <b>very exciting. And at the end of</b> <b>2019 we were, we finished the review of</b> <b>all of the current news funds, which was</b> <b>over 4000 funds. And</b> <b>then at that time.</b> <b>We had all of our data. We continue</b> <b>to code buns that come through the door,</b> <b>but we really have the bulk of what our</b> <b>compliance data was going to look like</b> <b>and we started and we hired another</b> <b>person in 2019 as well.</b> <b>So we built out our department at all our</b> <b>data. So what are we doing now? What is</b> <b>this? What is this world of compliance</b> <b>look like?So</b> <b>our gift compliance day-to-day is, it's a</b> <b>couple of different things, obviously the</b> <b>gift agreement workflow. So obviously</b> <b>questions that come through our regular</b> <b>inbox which keeps us very busy. But</b> <b>it's also our regular audit schedule.</b> <b>We have all this data. We can do a lot of</b> <b>different auditing now, which is very</b> <b>exciting. So weekly that looks</b> <b>like looking at gifts and suspense again,</b> <b>that QA data, we're making sure that</b> <b>everything going into our database is</b> <b>looking good. Monthly we're looking</b> <b>at. University matches,</b> <b>so somebody at the chancellor's office</b> <b>was supposed to match a gift that came</b> <b>in. Funds that are linked to the</b> <b>university side for whatever reason, we</b> <b>want to get those linked and used.</b> <b>And then yearly, we're looking at funds</b> <b>that should have converted once they hit</b> <b>a certain amount or a certain date. And</b> <b>we're looking at distribution exceptions</b> <b>of funds that aren't supposed to</b> <b>distribute at a certain time. Now they</b> <b>maybe they do and again</b> <b>suspended distribution, they were put on</b> <b>hold for a reason, but now we need to</b> <b>turn them on. We need to look at those.</b> <b>So again, this regular audit schedule is</b> <b>helping us stay on top of those</b> <b>underutilized funds and kind of checking</b> <b>off any factor that could lead up to</b> <b>that. It's not linked, should have</b> <b>converted, doesn't exist anymore.</b> <b>Distributions are stopped. We're staying</b> <b>on top of those issues before they get so</b> <b>big we can't manage it.</b> <b>Outcome, I know we don't have too much</b> <b>time actually. Shannon, are there any</b> <b>questions we need to answer at this</b> <b>point? We'll speed it up a little bit in</b> <b>these last questions, but I</b> <b>think we'll have time at the end. We're</b> <b>almost there. OK. So</b> <b>outcome. What was</b> <b>really striking was once</b> <b>we had that general e-mail</b> <b>address, we had over 800</b> <b>inquiries which was over double of</b> <b>questions and requests.</b> <b>And just asking for help, they couldn't.</b> <b>They can't spend the fund. The program</b> <b>doesn't exist. How? What can we do? So it</b> <b>was a lot for our very small department,</b> <b>but it was fabulous.</b> <b>Something that always the CEO's and CEO</b> <b>'s out there want to know is the ROI,</b> <b>right? What? Why invest in it?</b> <b>Well, because you're</b> <b>creating A-Team,</b> <b>right? Everybody feels they're having the</b> <b>same goal and they're working together</b> <b>because of that transparency,</b> <b>collaboration is a lot easier.</b> <b>Have we eliminated silos?</b> <b>No, I think that will never happen in</b> <b>higher Ed, But people are talking, people</b> <b>are reaching out within. We see it</b> <b>internally in our small team.</b> <b>But across the board, right Advancement</b> <b>is having more and better conversations</b> <b>with the people they're there to</b> <b>fundraise for and vice versa. We we have</b> <b>campus partners now that know there is</b> <b>advancement First off and then even who</b> <b>to go to, so. Again,</b> <b>we're reachable and predictable.</b> <b>Development staff, we often when we talk</b> <b>to our fundraisers, they're like, well, I</b> <b>don't want to reach out and tell them</b> <b>that we're not spending well. Back to the</b> <b>donor will find out they better, right?</b> <b>We have never ever had somebody</b> <b>say, well, now that I know, I will not.</b> <b>I hate you. I will never give you money</b> <b>again. Depends how you phrase it, right?</b> <b>Having to phrase it well, we've sat</b> <b>on $1,000,000. Canyou give me another</b> <b>$1,000,000 please? No.</b> <b>But to be able to actually reach out and</b> <b>have a conversation. A lot of our</b> <b>fundraisers say, you know what I see?</b> <b>It's not being spent. I know why</b> <b>because often the program doesn't. I have</b> <b>a reason now to pick up the phone and</b> <b>reach out. And these again,</b> <b>fundraising is a a relationship</b> <b>business. This transparency</b> <b>and consistency really increases</b> <b>and aids relationships.</b> <b>And the same is true for the our campus</b> <b>partners, right? With us</b> <b>changing when we distribute, with us</b> <b>being more transparent, how much you</b> <b>have, what you can use it with. They are</b> <b>now able to build this into the</b> <b>budget, not just having an afterthought,</b> <b>but really when budget season comes,</b> <b>knowing how much they have in gift funds</b> <b>and what they can support has been used.</b> <b>Takeaways. What are we</b> <b>doing on time? All right?</b> <b>So I'm here to tell you that everyone</b> <b>listening, congratulations, you're also</b> <b>in gift compliance. And that just</b> <b>means that if you are involved in</b> <b>expecting any kind of gift for your</b> <b>institution, you're in on that promise</b> <b>that we're going to do what we said we</b> <b>were going to, that we agreed to do. So</b> <b>we all have that collective</b> <b>responsibility. To</b> <b>spend them. To spend in in terms of.</b> <b>Donor intent and in the timely fashion.</b> <b>So I think we're we're at the end and we</b> <b>really just want to leave you with a</b> <b>couple things.</b> <b>One is that you have to do compliance.</b> <b>We're all in it together, right? But it's</b> <b>also not scary. It feels overwhelming.</b> <b>But it's important. It's again, it's that</b> <b>donor stewardship, but it's also to</b> <b>protect the donor. It is to protect the</b> <b>university as well.</b> <b>And it should be a priority in everyone's</b> <b>day-to-day.</b> <b>We also don't want you to feel like, Oh</b> <b>my gosh, I have to go back and build this</b> <b>apartment and audit all my funds. How</b> <b>they want to do that?I think if you just</b> <b>picked a couple things from today, then</b> <b>went back to your desk. One of them</b> <b>would be building those relationships.</b> <b>We've got a couple of questions around</b> <b>that and that's really what's helped most</b> <b>of our success in this issue is we have</b> <b>some key people on every single campus</b> <b>that we work with every single day who</b> <b>know our compliance, again that culture</b> <b>compliance in and out. And they really</b> <b>help the early liaise already. But for</b> <b>you that might look like you can't reach</b> <b>every single fund manager. But if</b> <b>they all have a budget officer that they</b> <b>work with, maybe just talk to that budget</b> <b>officer and make sure they understand</b> <b>what gets funds are and where we need to</b> <b>be spending them and be strategic about</b> <b>it. Or if you know that there's a school</b> <b>that or unit in your institution that's</b> <b>not really spending, maybe just</b> <b>prioritize slacking and make sure there's</b> <b>not an issue there.</b> <b>And also those template standards and</b> <b>reports both have helped us so much again</b> <b>at creating that culture provides that</b> <b>predictability is that. Our</b> <b>policies are super clear and there we</b> <b>have templates for everything and we have</b> <b>standards. We're always going to say the</b> <b>same thing when you come to us every</b> <b>single time. And</b> <b>training, health and guidance, again,</b> <b>nobody knows you're there or that they</b> <b>have this tool that's not going to help</b> <b>anybody. And ask for help.</b> <b>Again. So I can give you a</b> <b>Click to our left slide. We're here for</b> <b>you. We are so happy to answer any</b> <b>questions or if you just want to talk</b> <b>something out with us and problem we're</b> <b>having. This is our</b> <b>contact information. Please reach out.</b> <b>Um, we're both here to help you and</b> <b>we hope that everyone got something on</b> <b>today. And thank you. We have a lot of</b> <b>questions, so hopefully we have some time</b> <b>to answer that.</b> <b>The first question is what program</b> <b>software did you use to create the search</b> <b>platform? How was it built and is it used</b> <b>for scholarships?</b> <b>So the the university and us, we</b> <b>use Cognos. The data is</b> <b>housed in the data warehouse, but it's</b> <b>Cognos. It's not the prettiest</b> <b>report, you know, but we have limited</b> <b>resources. So we really focused on</b> <b>getting the data in and getting the data</b> <b>out. We're hoping to expand that, but the</b> <b>the tool is Cognos. And is it</b> <b>for scholarships? Yes. For anything.</b> <b>Absolutely. Every. Everything.</b> <b>Everything. Um,</b> <b>and we are working with one</b> <b>of our campuses to try to incorporate and</b> <b>link this information with their</b> <b>scholarship platform. Unfortunately, of</b> <b>course, every school has to seems to have</b> <b>a different platform, but we're trying to</b> <b>again be more transparent and more useful</b> <b>because currently they have to, they take</b> <b>this information actually and manually</b> <b>enter it into their scholarship program.</b> <b>Do you remember what it was called?</b> <b>First I think something like that so.</b> <b>But yes, it is capturing scholarships</b> <b>again, anything that donor wants to give</b> <b>to. I hope that answers the question.</b> <b>Have you encountered fund managers that</b> <b>have a scarcity mentality? That is,</b> <b>they're afraid if they spend, the money</b> <b>will be gone forever, so they want to</b> <b>avoid spending in case there is a future</b> <b>need. How were you able to convince them</b> <b>to spend?Shannon, that's your daily,</b> <b>so why don't you answer that. Yeah, I</b> <b>think we touched on this one earlier,</b> <b>but. Yes, I would say that's probably</b> <b>more so than what we're dealing with when</b> <b>we see other utilized funds. Is</b> <b>that that rainy day fund? What if we</b> <b>never get anything that never comes in</b> <b>there to that bad? Well, yeah, that could</b> <b>happen. But we've agreed to use</b> <b>these gifts for what someone has donated</b> <b>for us. So we need to do that. And if</b> <b>you're working with your advantage</b> <b>partner, we continue, continue to</b> <b>fundraise for that. So yeah, we do see</b> <b>that a lot.</b> <b>Can you share your thoughts on carrying</b> <b>funds forward for a specific purpose? If</b> <b>it's an account that only has a small</b> <b>amount of earnings each year, That is,</b> <b>the fund manager wants to build up funds</b> <b>to pay for a larger ticket project, data</b> <b>set, etcetera.</b> <b>Absolutely. Um, we have</b> <b>basically a system in place that if you</b> <b>do not, let's say you have want to</b> <b>have a bigger purchase, absolutely. We</b> <b>see that a lot. We have a huge medical</b> <b>school happens. The donor</b> <b>needs to be aware of that. And</b> <b>we have a form that they can fill out to</b> <b>hold distributions. We usually do</b> <b>not like to distribute, but we're holding</b> <b>distribution so that the fund can grow</b> <b>with the donor approval and on a year</b> <b>to year basis. </b> <b>But yes, absolutely.</b> <b>I'd like to thank Saskia and Shannon for</b> <b>their great presentation and thank all of</b> <b>our attendees for joining. Before you go,</b> <b>if you haven't completed the session</b> <b>evaluation, please do so. You can return</b> <b>to the agenda to find your next session.</b> <b>Thank you. Thank you. Bye.</b>

Gift Compliance

Underutilized Funds

Transparency

Technology

Training

Search Platform

Communication

Compliance