A report showing an $18 million decrease in donations from public foundations and associations may be wrong, U administrators said.
The April Monthly Gift Comparison Report, a summary of private support for the U, showed a drop in public donations compared to last year. However, the report showed inaccurate figures because of the categories in which gifts and donations were placed.
Randy Dryer, chair of the Board of Trustees, raised the issue of private donations being higher than last year.
Dryer said that the board looks at the reports each month. Since contributions from sources other than tuition and state appropriations are an important part of the U’s operating budget, the board is obviously concerned about outside fundraising efforts, he said.
When the Board of Trustees reviewed the report, some gifts did not carry the appropriate designation code, but were instead given a generic code called “foundation.”
“The classification of some of the foundations might have been inaccurate, based on further research and our better understanding after research of some of the exact entity type,” said Tina Burton, executive director for U Development Services.
“Now we know they should be (categorized) as public or corporate,” Burton said.
Development Services manages all the contributions made to the U and the alumni and donor database, she said.
“All that (the situation) was, was a matter of correcting the source designation (of gifts),” said Vice President for Institutional Advancement Fred Esplin.
Jim de St. Germain, director of undergraduates for the School of Computing, said that these mistakes are difficult to catch. “Until a discrepancy is really blatantly obvious it’s unlikely to be caught,” he said.
Development Services categorizes donations through two factors: the name of the foundation and guidelines given by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education.
Rae Goldsmith, vice president of communications and marketing for the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, said the CASE Management and Reporting Standards have existed for about 25 years and are intended to help institutions benchmark their annual fundraising.
“The standards/guidelines have been updated a number of times over the years based upon advances in the fundraising profession,” he said.
Burton said her office is striving for accurate data and information for university fundraising records.
“So whenever a question is raised, we research the underlying information and review what, if any, changes need to be made to make it accurate for the future,” Burton said.