The Life Cycle of a Gift

Bringing a gift to fruition from beginning to end is often a full team effort. It includes multiple departments, colleagues and activity and happens over time – sometimes months, sometimes years.

The following story describes the team effort involved. It includes colleagues being intentional, ever present in their role within the division and providing the amazing customer services that so many of our external and internal partners know and appreciate.

Each of us is an important piece to connecting, engaging and partnering with UGA alumni, donors, prospects, parents and friends – don’t ever forget the role that you play and its importance in our success as a division and a university.

1. Talent Management recruits two amazing new staff for the division, one in the alumni association and one in development.
2. The new staff in the Alumni Association receives a referral name from a current donor at an amazing event that our Office of Special Events has planned.
3. The development officer asks research to provide research to qualify this person.
4. The email that is in GAIL is not accurate.  Records finds an updated email address and phone number for the development officer.
5. Research does a detailed report on the person’s capacity and affinity.
6. The development officer schedules a meeting with the prospect after the prospect mentions receiving an annual fund piece in the mail from UGA that she was very impressed with.
7. The intro meeting goes well and the development officer decides to put a plan on this person. Prospect management assists with talking through the steps of the plan entered into GAIL.
8. The development officer invites the prospect to campus to meet Kelly, the dean, and students and works with Kelly’s office, their dean’s office, a handful of faculty and students to ensure a great day with a few fun surprises.
9. The prospect mentions on her visit to campus that her company would like to start recruiting student interns from UGA.
10. The development officer partners with CFR and Career Services to connect the prospect company’s Chief Human Resource Officer and head recruiter to the appropriate individuals and opportunities to hire interns.
11. The fundraiser follows up with a second meeting with the prospect and brings Gift & Estate Planning along to discuss a retained life estate gift. The donor had mentioned briefly that they wanted to learn more about retained life estates.
12. The prospect has a friend’s daughter attending UGA next year.  The friends are also great prospects.
13. The development officer contacts Sara Cook in parent programs and ask Sara for someone on her team to meet with these new UGA parents.
14. The prospect is ready to receive an official proposal.   The development officer works with DARCOMM, athletics, and PSO to create a full proposal with an opportunity to create a new center benefiting the academic unit, athletics and PSO.  The prospect has decided to hold off on the retained life estate gift for now and just focus on an outright gift.
15. The development officer presents the proposal to the prospect.
16. The prospect and her financial planner have a few questions about the investment portfolio for the endowment.
17. The UGAF and the development officer have a conference call to answer their questions.
18. The prospect accepts the proposal after reviewing and discussing with her financial planner and family.
19. The development officer works with Jennifer Hancock at UGAF and the other areas benefiting from the endowment to write the fund agreement and the letter of intent.
20. The development officer gets all signatures on these documents within three months to ensure the endowment fund is set up and ready to receive the actual gift.
21. Gift accounting enters the gift into the system and sets up the pledge payment schedule.
22. Donor Relations & Stewardship sends a thank you letter from the President to the donor.
23. DARCOMM profiles the donor for ‘Why I Give’ feature in Georgia Magazine and on the giving website.