Retirement of UW Foundation president

Saturday, September 26th, 2009

University of Wisconsin’s main fundraising arm will undergo a change in leadership as the president of UW Foundation announced at the board of director’s meeting on Friday that he will retire.  President Sandy Wilcox announced early that there will be enough time for the search committee to hire their new president.

Russ Howes, the vice president of Planned Giving and Legal Affairs at the foundation said, “Wilcox played a tremendous role in their effort to reach UW alumni and friends in doing significant amounts of fundraising.   With new administration coming in the university, they would like to have a foundation of leadership that would last.”  The foundation has experienced a lot of significant improvement for the past 21 years.  Employee personnel grew 6-7 times and the fundraising for the university support has increased starting from $27 million up to $130 million.

Wilcox said “I feel fortunate to have this position for two decades.  Many private funds raised during my tenure were used to construct numerous campus buildings like Chazen Art Museum, Grainger Hall, Engineering Hall, and the new medical campus.  Even when the global economic crisis took a toll on UW Foundation and it’s starting to feel investment cutbacks, I’m confident that things would still pick up soon.”

Tags: Chazen Art Museum, Engineering Hall, funds, Grainger Hall, legal affairs, Planned Giving, Russ Howes, Sandy Wilcox, tenure, University of Wisconsin, UW Foundation
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Planned Giving Gifts in spite of Economy

Sunday, August 9th, 2009

Donors to charitable organizations such as Wayland Baptist University are reluctant to dismiss any liquid assets.  If invested funds and retirement plans tanked with the market somewhat, it will only add to the uncertainty.

However, it doesn’t mean that you’ll strike off the university from your generosity.  In fact, while thinking of your own, you may want to consider contributing to Wayland’s future.  An ideal way for you to do this is through planned giving.  You can support Christian higher education and leave a gift down the road to the university.  So no matter how large your estate is, it’s a good move to plan ahead.

When you put the university inside your will - whether you give certain assets, a percentage or your estate, or your entire estate - these are planned gifts.  People who want to leave a legacy in the future actually have several options to do so: provision by will, charitable remainder annuity trust, charitable remainder unitrust, gift annuity agreement, retirement plans, charitable lead trust, revocable living trust, and planned gifts.

According to Martha Cross, the director of major gifts for Wayland, “If you don’t make future plans, somebody else will decide what will happen to your things and your money.  Better do it yourself rather than allow someone who doesn’t know your heart do it.”

Tags: estate, funds, legacy, Martha Cross, planned gifts, Planned Giving, retirement, trust, Wayland Baptist University, will
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Investors Get More Fund Brochures

Tuesday, July 7th, 2009

Investors are saying that they’re blanketed with hedge funds promotional materials than ever before.  These funds seek to gain back the assets lost or withdrawn because of the financial crisis’ negative performance.

“Normally, only a few funds would arrange a meeting with me before the conference.  However, this year, about 30 e-mailed or called,” said one manager from a company of family trust (he declined to be named and prefers to remain anonymous).  He’s talking about the GAIM hedge fund industry conference where investors like pension funds, family trusts, and high net worth individuals are saying that the sales drive intensified.

Mark Schindler, a Clariden Leu portfolio manager, also told Reuters “Marketing has been very aggressive this year.  I had so many calls and e-mails bombarding me so I have to be selective on who to answer.”

Ironically, in spite of apparent efforts in marketing, Mr. Schindler still noticed fewer sales staff compared to the previous year.  This means that executives and fund managers have to talk to potential investors about their investment strategy - a role that they usually avoid because it’s a distraction from running the funds daily.  “This is something that we rarely saw, the people actually managing the money are here to talk about their own funds,” Schindler observed.

Tags: conference, Family Trust, fund managers, funds, GAIM hedge fund industry, hedge funds, investors, Mark Schindler, portfolio manager
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