Inside Iowa State: Iowa State University

December 13, 2002

Foundation info policy gets OK

by Linda Charles
The ISU Foundation has a new public information policy, approved by the foundation's board of directors and released earlier this month.

"Since private gift support is an important part of student, faculty and program success, we know that our many stakeholders deserve a clear explanation of how information is handled," noted Peg Armstrong-Gustafson, interim president and CEO. "We believe in openness and accountability."

The new policy divides information into three groups: "legally public," "not public" and "voluntarily made public."

Legally, the foundation is required to disclose its tax returns for the last three years, tax-exempt status forms, articles of incorporation and its biennial report. Under the policy, the foundation will not make public personal information about donors, prospective donors and employees, and strategic and competitive information. This includes:

Personal information, such as donors' families or residences, or financial information, such as net worth, stock holdings, estate plans, gift amounts (unless the donor agrees gifts can be made public), and employee information. (The foundation also will honor donors' requests to keep other information private, even if normally that information would be released.)
Strategic and competitive business practices, such as plans for fund-raising campaigns or lists of potential donors.

The foundation voluntarily will make the rest of its information public, although in some cases, information may be summarized to protect donor confidentiality. For example, the foundation will provide information about the total amount it spends to cultivate donors, but will not make public how much was spent on a specific person. Information that will be public includes:

Administrative information, such as names of the foundation's governors and directors, the foundation's by-laws and tax returns beyond the required three years.
Financial information, including the foundation's annual audit, annual reports and operating budget summary.
Information related to fund raising, such as guidelines for named endowed positions and scholarships, gift acceptance policy and gift club levels.
Foundation investment information, including policies and financial investments.
Funds information, including the foundation's disbursement guide-lines for endowments and the university's annual review of endowments.

The policy also requires foundation staff to help the public under-stand the documents that are public. As part of that effort, Phyllis Lepke, vice president for public information and legal affairs, will be the foundation's public information liaison.