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CASE All Districts Online 2023
Gift Fund Compliance- Tackling Underutilized Funds
Gift Fund Compliance- Tackling Underutilized Funds
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<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>
Video Summary
The video is a presentation entitled "Gift Compliance: Tackling Underutilized Funds" by Saskia and Shannon. The presenters work at the University of Colorado Foundation and have been in the gift compliance department for around eight years. They discuss how they identified and addressed the issue of underutilized funds at their institution. They explain that underutilized funds are stagnant funds that are not being spent according to donor intent or in a timely manner. The presenters emphasize the importance of transparency, technology, training, and staff in tackling this issue. They describe how they built a search platform and developed reports to provide greater transparency to fund managers and facilitate better spending decisions. They highlight the positive outcomes of their efforts, including improved communication, increased trust from donors, and a more collaborative environment. The presenters also provide insights into their ongoing audit work and the importance of standardized policies and procedures. They encourage the audience to prioritize compliance and build relationships to address underutilized funds effectively.
Asset Caption
CASE Career Levels: 1-6
CASE Competencies: Business and Financial Acumen, Industry/Sector Expertise
Keywords
Gift Compliance
Underutilized Funds
Transparency
Technology
Training
Search Platform
Communication
Compliance
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