How much do you donate??

[Anonymous]

I don’t understand the people who are saying they feel under appreciated? Isn’t appreciation the whole point of the advancement office? What are you wanting, more handwritten notes from students? A tote bag?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand the people who are saying they feel under appreciated? Isn’t appreciation the whole point of the advancement office? What are you wanting, more handwritten notes from students? A tote bag?

Hahaha!! Right?!
They want a statue in the school parking lot

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have a private family foundation. It exists because of an estate tax strategy from two generations before me. The reason I mention it is that I don’t think people understand that in many cases when you see people giving from a family foundation, it’s not money that they ever had in their hands with the option to spend it on anything except donations to nonprofits. It might be funded by a CLAT or some other vehicle.

Imo it’s really different if you have $1m a year to allocate to various nonprofits vs having $1m in your own name and then deciding to give it to a nonprofit. That’s not to say that people don’t put “their own” money in family foundations or we can’t cheer or jeer them for what they decide to give to, it’s just a distinction that I don’t think people often know about unless they’re involved in one.

Exactly. We are in the same boat. If it were my own money, I think I would donate differently but we are lucky to have the option of supporting the school to the tune of several thousand a year while also supporting local charities we care about, thanks to a wise relative. There is also a stipulation that we are not to benefit from any gift we give from the foundation.

[Anonymous]

At a $60,000 tuition the donation should be negative. I volunteer and I enjoy it but donate symbolic amount of $100 since I believe all schools are overpriced and dont deserve a single additional penny.

[Anonymous]

We used to give $1000 to $2000 a year, but we are rather unhappy with the school now so we give nothing.

They have made it clear to us that our satisfaction isn’t a concern for them and that if we don’t like it, we can leave. I’m can’t move a kid for their senior year, but I can stop donating.

For the record, when you give this little money, the amount doesn’t really matter, it’s more important to the school that they have their participation percentage as close to 100% as possible. You’re not really moving the needle at $500 versus $1500, so if that’s the range you’re considering, you don’t need to spend time stressing about it and you don’t need to stretch. The school cares a lot more when you’re considering $50,000 versus $75,000.