Restricted & Unrestricted Gifts

Unrestricted gifts: support general scholarship and operating funds, with no conditions placed on how they are allocated.

Restricted gifts: made available on the condition that the funds are used for a specific purpose, as designated by the donor.

While schools love to get as many unrestricted donations as possible, the reality is that most schools both want and need to match donors with projects that are dear to their hearts. However, it is not always possible for the school to accept the conditions that the donor may place on a gift.

In considering whether a restricted gift can be accepted, the following questions will be asked:

• Does it support existing programs?
• Will it encumber existing programs with new responsibilities?
• How does the affected department feel?
• What is the global impact on faculty and students?
• Is this undertaking consistent with the core purposes of the school?
• If not, will the donor consider supporting related parts of the program with a higher priority within the school?

Let’s look at a couple of examples:

Example 1: Someone who is very interested in swimming and diving offers the school money to build a pool. Currently, swimming is only available to students as a “club” — traveling to a local pool on Friday afternoons for a couple of months. Since swimming is not part of the core program already, and ongoing maintenance and insurance costs would be very high, it is likely that this donor would be asked to consider supporting another aspect of the athletic program at the school.

Example 2: Someone who is very interested in math (or science, art, etc.) wants to give a large gift to that department, to be used as the department head sees fit. This gift most likely meets the conditions, and would probably be accepted as is.