The intent of this report is to highlight gift funds that have had relatively low levels of expenses over the prior year. This should help identify pools of untapped gift balances. You may also export a spreadsheet that includes budget numbers and allocation codes, which may serve as a good starting point for further review by department staff. Ultimately, the goal is to help ensure our gift funds are making an impact, which will in turn provide strong stories for stewardship to donors.
Access
Back to TopYou may access the report HERE. Please note that if you are working remotely, you must be logged into the VPN to access this report.
Access is limited to select Dean's Office personnel as well as Unit Chairs/Directors and Administrators. Users are restricted to viewing information related to the unit they work in. We can also provide user access upon request.
Note that if your department doesn't directly manage your gift budgets (e.g. the budgets are housed under another unit's org hierarchy), the report may appear blank for you. Reach out to us if you have any questions about this.
First-time Users
Back to TopOnce you've opened the report link, you'll find two options/views: the report and a table-view of operating budgets. We recommend starting with the report, which will define the primary metric used in the report, as well as walk you through from high-level to unit-specific views. It will also provide instructions on how to export a spreadsheet of relevant operating budgets.
This report was built in Tableau, which allows the user to interact with the report. Hovering the mouse cursor over chart elements you're interested will typically show additional details, and clicking on chart elements may apply that as a filter to other charts on the view.
Difficult-to-use Funds
Back to TopYou may find that some funds may include restrictions that make effective spending difficult. Whenever possible, we recommend first taking a look at any relevant endowment agreements (instructions) to confirm the restrictions in an endowment. (For current-use and term gift fund documents, we can help you locate those via Central Advancement).
If you're still left with difficult restrictions or run into any other questions or issues, please reach out to CAS Advancement Services at casadser@uw.edu. We'll collaborate with you on closely reviewing the gift documentation and determining next steps for potentially loosening those restrictions.
Data Caveats
Back to Top- We plan to update this report twice a year (Jan/July). Note that with Tandem and Financial Transformation, we may run into some delays with our July 2023 update, given the significant back-end changes that will occur at this time.
- Please note that this report links the Financial Accounting System (FAS) with Advancement's system of record (Advance). The two were built with very different purposes in mind, so funds from either system may not associate with one another perfectly. You may find errors, typically with Advance funds/allocations supported by multiple operating budgets (or vice versa).
- Endowment reinvestments are not counted as expenses in the usage rates metric.
- This excludes gift budgets that are not associated with any Advance allocations.
- This excludes Capital gift funds, since expenses on these may be highly irregular. The main metric for this report (usage rates) does not apply well to these.
- This excludes gift funds established very recently (the past 6 months), since we presume spending plans may still be in development.
If you run into any issues or have questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to us at casadser@uw.edu.