Negotiating a Transformational GiftNegotiating a Transformational Gift

Is your institution’s gift acceptance policy (GAP) ready for a stress test? It will need to be, especially when a negotiation for a “transformational gift”¹ is imminent, whether donor-initiated or solicited by the institution. The following case study represents an aggregation of facts culled from my files of practice as a lawyer, senior development executive and donor. The primary intent of my review is to raise critical issues, none of which come with ready-made solutions, but perhaps rebuttable presumptions of how to begin thinking through the issues. Hopefully, an institution’s discipline of analyzing a possible range of solutions yields “a transformational gift” that doesn’t eat its unrestricted funds, and, in fact, advances the imp...