Caltech’s development and institute relations team handles the drafting and execution of 70 to 75 gift agreements per year. The assistant director of advancement information services drafts all agreements and shepherds them through appropriate approvals by development officer(s), the provost, the vice president of DIR, general counsel, and others, as needed.
From the Judges
The committee appreciated that the California Institute of Technology built its own solution to manage and administer the gift agreement routing process. Gift agreements and the related back and forth communications can be quite time-consuming and tedious to manage. The timely execution of a gift agreement conveys to a donor that their gift is valued and improves the donor’s experience in making the gift. Gift agreements are an integral part of the development process and the fact that they invested the time and resources to this critical function demonstrates solid planning and execution on the organization’s part.
