i don't expect USM's endowment to be very big. however, the nacubo survey is voluntary and from the nacubo website, USM has not been in any survey since 2002, which is the earliest on the site. furthermore, by the website's own data, only about 1/3 of institutions participate in their survey.

-- Edited by stinky cheese man at 22:09, 2007-01-25

FYI:

The last year that Horace was President of USM, the USM Foundation held approximately $35,000,000 to $38,000,000 in the Foundation. Remember, it is the interest that is used by the Foundation, not the corpus. Under Horace, private giving was just starting to develop into something that could significantly help the university. Until Horace, the university had never actively tried to cultivate donors. That has been stopped cold by the current President and his chosen head of the Foundation, who treats his 'underlings' with verbal abuse and threats. There has been over a 100% turnover rate at the Foundation since his arrival.

In the last five years, very little has trickled into the Foundation. Pledges have been halted by a large number of donors, with their pledge cards returned with "Contact me when there is a new President at USM" written on the card.

Cultivation of donors is a long term process. That has been halted for the last five years and will have to basically start over when a new President is selected. Provided the new leadership (a hopeful term) has a clue about private gifts and the cultivation process, it will take years for USM to return to its former level of financial support.

The current level of financial assets in the USM Foundation is probably (a best guess here) in the low to mid $40 million range.

We have lost so much ground in the last five years. And this gap will never closed. The best that can happen is new leadership will make cultivation of private gifts a priority and we can start to rebuild what we had and once again actively grow the assets of the Foundation.

Several outstanding Development Officers have been forced to leave USM and have done very well at other universities. They have moved into high levels of advancement at their current universities and could possible be encouraged to return and 'right the ship' so to speak.

A request needs to be made to obtain the 990 federal tax return.  This is the return that must be filed with the IRS annually.  Not only does it contain revenue and expense items, but also balance sheet information (cash and investment balances, etc.).  This form should be made available to anyone who asks.  It is part of what being a non-profit, tax exempt organization is all about...disclosing information to donors and other interested parties!

Godless Liberal wrote: ... So, I am curious as to why you would not expect us to have a respectable endowment? The usual reason given is that we don't have a med or law school. This may explain part of our miserable endowment--but we do have a lot of alums with big money and many schools with our profile have done a lot better than we have. I suspect the explanation lies elsewhere.

---

Yes, but we have an ed school.

According to an IRS agent of my acquaintance, the profession of decedents with the largest estates is -- ta da -- school teachers!  That is because so many wealthy male professionals leave widows who were teachers. 

I, too, suspect the explanation lies elsewhere.

-- Edited by ram at 22:47, 2007-01-26

-- Edited by ram at 22:48, 2007-01-26

This information on public access is available at the following IRS site from the 990 instruction booklet:  http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i990-ez.pdf  Please see pages 10-12.  I cannot imagine that any donor would be refused this information.  Granted, some sections of the return can and should be withheld such as names and addresses of contributors.  Everyone can understand the logic behind that. 

If I am reading it correctly, it is no longer necessary to go to the non-profit entity itself.  This information is available directly from the IRS on a CD.  That information is shown in the third paragraph of section M.

As a former USM financial officer who has moved on to greener and happier pastures, I really have no dog in this fight.  However, I detest financial wrongdoing and believe that interested parties have an obligation to monitor the activites of the organizations they are associated with for the benefit of the public at large.