Solicitations and Fundraising at UA
The UA Foundation’s Fund & Gift Services Team wants to take this opportunity to remind you of the services and resources available to you through the UA Foundation.
Solicitation and Fundraising: Please work with your campus Development Office (who will also communicate the UAF donor coordination policy) on any potential solicitation or fundraising event. The Foundation needs to review and approve all solicitations before finalizing, as IRS regulations and guidelines change from year-to-year. Contact the Foundation Fund & Gift Services team via email for review and approval. The need to review also applies to forms used in prior years that are being reprinted for use in a new year and to any forms/email solicitations sent by UA volunteers.
The Foundation also offers fundraising tools that can be customized for specific fundraising efforts, including text-to-give, online donation forms, crowdfunding, etc. Please contact your Development Office and the Foundation’s Fund and Gift Services team so we can help you determine the best platform for your solicitation efforts. If your unit is looking to accept donations online, please contact Fund & Gift Services. University units planning a fundraising event (virtual or in person) to benefit any UA unit should consult with your campus Development Office and Foundation Fund & Gift Services well in advance of the event (a requested minimum of thirty days) to approve the plan and start the necessary paperwork.
To expedite donors’ receipts and availability of donations for expenditures, donors should be directed to donate online at engage.alaska.edu/uaf or to mail their donations directly to the Foundation’s office: P.O. Box 755080 Fairbanks, AK 99775.
Gift Acceptance: Per the Board of Regents Policy (05.14), all donations to the UA system are to be deposited by the University of Alaska Foundation. Therefore, all donations received on campus or by a university representative must be sent* to the UA Foundation within one business day.
- Check law requires that checks are made out to the University of Alaska Foundation (or UA Foundation) since the UA Foundation is a separate legal entity from the University of Alaska. Unfortunately, we have had donations returned by the bank because they were not made out to the UA Foundation as the legal entity.
- Fund/donation designations may be noted via a cover letter or notation on the check's memo.
- Any accompanying documents, including original envelopes, should be submitted with the donation.
- Please do not sign or fill out any accompanying paperwork. All paperwork needing completion will be handled by the Foundation, as the legal recipient of donations.
Spending from a UA Foundation Fund: We encourage the expenditure of donors’ dollars, so please note that spending donations from UA Foundation funds follow a different process from UA's. To ensure you are up-to-date on the processes and to gain access to the necessary forms and their instructions, please review our TESTnet** pages on Foundation Expenditure Guidance and Spending Donations at the Foundation. Foundation Fund & Gift Services staff can also work with you if you have questions about the terms of charitable donations and/or Foundation funds’ purposes.
Internal/informational fund balances can now be pulled via the Monthly Fund Balances report available to UA employees via the Tableau system on a self-service basis. We are limited in the number of licenses available; therefore, we have a generic user account that can be used for this report. All users who wish to access the report must complete our Financial Data Confidentiality form before credentials may be released to each individual.
As staffing changes and UA units reorganize, please keep us in the loop as these changes impact Foundation funds. Such changes should be emailed to ua-foundationfundgift@alaska.edu.
If you would like to share the great things happening because of philanthropic investment in your area, please reach out to Foundation Chief Donor Relations Officer Tlisa Northcutt. She can help you communicate that impact with donors who support your program.
If you have questions about these procedures, please contact the Foundation Fund & Gift Services team via email. Additionally, if you know of others not on this email who would benefit from this information, please pass this on to them.
Thank you.
* While it is preferred that donors mail their donations directly to the UA Foundation for a timelier deposit and receipt, any donations received in your office should be sent via the campus courier service or hand-carried to the UA Foundation’s Fairbanks office. Our office in Butrovich, Suite 106, now has a dropbox with carbon-copy drop logs available inside the suite entrance.
** In order to access this site, you need to be logged into your UA Google account.