Gift & Endowments

Gifts & Endowments

Gifts are pledges, outright contributions received from private sources, or activities supported by an external party such as a donor in exchange for which no goods or services are expected, implied or forthcoming to the donor, and in which no proprietary interests are to be retained by the donor. A gift or bequest may specify that the funds are either expendable or endowed. In addition, expendable or endowed gifts may be designated as restricted or unrestricted. If restricted, written instruction from the donor is required. Unrestricted bequests to the University will be added to the University’s unrestricted endowment.

Endowments are gifts of money or income-producing property given for a specific purpose, such as research or scholarships; it can also be unrestricted for discretionary use. Generally, the endowed asset is kept intact and only the income generated by it is spent. Endowment assets may be nonexpendable, expendable for donor-specified purposes, or unrestricted with regards to spending.

Individuals with either the Unit Gift Manager or Custom Gift App User roles can successfully create new gift requests and approve related requests in Workday. Please note that the Create Custom Gift process in Workday which is used to create a new Gift worktag should only be initiated once funds have been received by the University.

Gift & Endowment Terminology

• Gift Type: Separates gifts into categories that can be used for reporting purposes such as True Endowments, Quasi Endowments, and Spendable Gifts
• Gift Origination: Separates gifts into various sources that are useful in reporting. Examples include Donor and Foundation Transfers
• Gift Purpose: The use of funds may be specified for purposes such as professorships, fellowships, scholarships, books, teaching, research, lectures, etc., that can be supported by varying amounts of funding; a gift can be designated with up to two purposes (one primary and one alternate)
• Responsible Organization: Translates to the Default Cost Center Worktag on the gift. This association drives business process routing and organizational reporting. This enables you to view, approve, and report on gifts that you own
• Underwater Funds: Underwater is used to describe an endowed fund if the current market value is less than its historic dollar value. While a fund is underwater, UVAFinance will work directly with the impacted department or unit to determine if they would like for the annual income distribution to be limited or withheld