Gift Funds

Find information about the different funds that can be created for gifts and pledges.

Gifts and pledges received by either The Regents or the UC San Diego Foundation must be assigned to an existing gift fund or to a new fund established to support the donor’s intended purpose.

Under fund accounting rules, gifts with the same purpose must be allocated to the same fund. A new fund is created only when the gift cannot be attributed to an existing active fund with the same restrictions.

Gift Services establishes a new gift fund when a gift is received and no active fund exists that matches the donor’s restrictions. Requests to establish a new fund may come from a department, a development officer, or through direct work with a donor.

For instructions and required forms, visit the Forms page, under the "New Gift Fund" section. Please include all required information with your submission. Incomplete requests will take longer to process.

Gift funds are either Current funds or Endowment funds. Both funds are held by either The Regents or the UC San Diego Foundation.

Types of Gift Funds

Gift funds may be established as either:

• Current funds
• Endowment funds

Both types may be held by either The Regents or the UC San Diego Foundation.

Current Funds

Current funds are used for the purpose designated by the donor and are spent as needed. Once fully expended, the fund is closed. These funds may earn interest, but interest is swept by the campus in accordance with PPM 410-5.

New Foundation Current Use Funds

A new UC San Diego Foundation current use fund may be established before any gifts are received.

The minimum gift level to establish a Foundation current use fund is $1,000. If the initial gift is less than $1,000, the request must include a written explanation describing why the fund is expected to exceed $1,000 and the anticipated timeframe.

New Regents Current Use Funds

All Regents gifts must include a completed Gift Acceptance Form (UDEV-100, Excel) and any required supporting documentation before they can be processed.

In some cases, an existing fund may be used for a new project identified by the department. Before opening a new fund, Gift Services will work with the department to determine whether an existing fund can be used for the designated purpose.

If a new fund is needed, Gift Services will assign a new fund number in the advancement donor database.

Current Funds that may convert to Endowments at a later date

Some current funds are established with the intention of converting to an endowment once a certain funding level is reached.

In these cases, the request must include written solicitation language or a public notice showing that donors were informed of this intent at the time gifts were solicited. This documentation is important because it shows donors understood the purpose of their gift could change over time.

If this notice was not provided when fundraising began, donors will need to be contacted in writing at the time of conversion. That process is lengthy and complex and would be the responsibility of the department or development officer requesting the change.

Memorial Funds

A memorial gift is a charitable contribution made in memory of a deceased individual. At UC San Diego, in most cases memorial gifts are received through the Moores Cancer Center, Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, etc. to honor an individual that died as a result of a disease. The department benefitting from the “In Memory” donation will send the appropriate acknowledgement to the surviving family member. There is usually no need to open up an additional fund as an existing campus unit fund can accommodate the various donations. However, a separate memorial fund can be established when a charitable contribution is made to honor deceased alumni, faculty, students, doctors or other persons, and to assist the school, department, or program with which the deceased was affiliated.

If a new memorial fund is requested, the family may have a specific use in mind and name the fund accordingly such as “The John Triton Memorial Scholarship Fund for Undergraduate Engineering Students”. The fund may be restricted to a particular department or field of study, used at the Chancellor’s discretion, or used to support student aid and the fund may be replenished with annual gifts from the decedent’s family or friends.

In choosing whether the new fund should be a Regents or UC San Diego Foundation fund, we recommend that a Regents fund be set up if the funds will be utilized for research as soon as they are received and there is no plan to create an endowment or expectation of reaching the $10,000 endowment minimum threshold. For restricted endowments other minimum dollar amounts may apply and we recommend use of the UC San Diego Foundation.

If the family wishes to solicit gifts for a new memorial fund, the fund can be included in the obituary with the following wording:

“In lieu of flowers, donations can be sent to the “John Triton Memorial Scholarship Fund” at University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive #9040, La Jolla , CA 92093-0940”.

To establish a memorial fund, contact Gift Services with the following information:

• The name of the deceased, class year and/or affiliation to the University.
• The name, address and telephone number of the individual or other family representative to receive notification of gifts received and determine fund designation.
• Whether the intention is for the fund to eventually become an endowment.
• The purpose/use of the fund.
• A copy of the obituary, if available.

Endowed Funds

• Endowments Funds are held and invested in perpetuity
• The principal is never spent to ensure growth and long term funding
• Endowments require special gift language
• Endowment Spending Policies allow for spending some of the annual return. This “spending” is then made available to the Departments

Endowment terms

Endowments are set up and implemented based on the agreement (or “terms”) that is established between the University and the donor. The agreement contains legal stipulations: 1) the original gift may never be expended, 2) the gift(s) are held and invested in perpetuity by The Regents of the University of California and the UC San Diego Foundation for the purpose of generating a permanent expendable income stream from the return on the gift, and 3) that the gift will be used for the purpose the donor desires. We have a variety of gift agreement templates available for reference.

Endowment Fund Guidelines for Regents and the UC San Diego Foundation

The Regents and the UC San Diego Foundation essentially follow the same guidelines for establishing new endowment funds.

There are differing minimum levels required to open an endowment.

Because of the cost of fund administration in relation to projected annual endowment income, a standard minimum of $10,000 is necessary to establish a new endowment in The Regents or the UC San Diego Foundation.

For endowed chairs, the standard minimum amount of a gift or gifts required to establish a general campus chair is $1,000,000.  The minimum is $2,000,000 to establish chairs in SIO and Health Sciences.  To establish an administrative chair requires a minimum of $3,000,000, and a VC chair is a minimum of $5,000,000.

• PPM-410-30 -“Policy and Guidelines for Endowed and Current Use Gift Funds Minimum Policy”. Please contact Donor Stewardship for guidance).

While certain minimum levels are required, the department or development officer working directly with the donor(s) should consider whether the projected annual endowment income, both now and in the future, would be sufficient to fulfill the donor’s intended purpose.

Funds Functioning as Endowments (FFE)

A fund functioning as an endowment, also called a quasi-endowment, may be created by a gift or bequest when a donor does not instruct that the gift be expended in its entirety or held as a true endowment. In such cases, UC San Diego may, acting in its own discretion, decide to create a fund functioning as an endowment in which the funds are invested in the same manner as if they were subject to the terms of a true endowment, with the crucial distinction that the University may at any time decide to withdraw all or part of the corpus of the fund and expend it for the purpose designated by the donor.