Welcome to Gift Planning Resources

This website was created by the Foundation's Office of Gift Planning to provide planned giving tools and training to our partners and colleagues at all three campuses. A tremendous opportunity exists to dramatically increase our major gift activity and production by educating prospects and donors regarding the various methods of giving available to them.

As many of you already know, these methods allow donors to address family, personal and financial goals while also fulfilling their desire to give back. The value placed on these strategies by donors is confirmed by the explosive growth in planned giving industry-wide. We need only reflect back on the last campaign to confirm this for ourselves, as witnessed by the fact that over $567 million of the $1.5+ billion total was comprised of deferred planned gifts. Of course this doesn't even include the major outright gifts that were undoubtedly the result of careful planning.

It's been said, and stands to reason, that every major gift requires some level of planning. The goal, therefore, in order to maximize our combined efforts, is to foster such planning and then be involved in the planning process. Working together in this way will allow the true value of our partnership to be realized.

Going forward, as the great transfer of wealth occurs from one generation to the next, evidence suggests an even greater focus on issues of control, taxation and security by a more educated and financially sophisticated "baby-boomer donor." Our future success in addressing the charitable goals and objectives of many wealth holders will be built upon consistent, effective and thorough communication concerning the full-range of tools we offer to assist them in their planning.

This is where you come in. The Gift Planning staff has always been charged with conveying the planned gift message, but now we also want to equip you, our partners and colleagues, with the tools necessary to fully integrate planned giving into your extensive efforts. As a result, we are confident that consistent use of e-Booklets and regular distribution of estate gift language, for example, will increase your gift production and help ensure the success of our current capital campaign. As always the Gift Planning staff is prepared to assist you in any way possible to achieve these results, so please contact us anytime.

- Ed Ewald, Senior Vice President for Gift Planning and Trust Services