The 2009 Voluntary Support of Education (VSE) survey contains no major changes. Revised standards developed six years ago by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) continue to govern how deferred gifts are reported, as explained below. These standards are documented in the CASE Management and Reporting Standards (third and fourth editions), which can be purchased at case.org. An abbreviated version is available to registered VSE users at case.org/content/vseintructnova2.html.
In the VSE survey, term “deferred gifts” refers only to newly established charitable reminders trusts, charitable gift annuities, and pooled income funds or additions to them. CAE and CASE do not categorize realized bequests, bequest intentions, pledges, or gifts of life insurance as deferred gifts.
Prior to 2004, deferred gifts were counted at the full face value of the assets used to establish the gift. However, various factors affect the tax deductibility of such gifts. The new standard is to value deferred gifts at the amount the IRS permits donor to deduct on their tax returns. To help survey respondents and users of the VSE data understand and calculate the value of deferred gifts, CAE provides a link to planned giving calculator at cae.org/vse. The link is directly under the login button. It is available to all visitors, whether or not they participate in the survey or subscribe to CAE’s online benchmarking tool, Data Miner.