[MUSIC] When I use the term investment policy statement, I mean the philosophy or objective that you adhere to when investing your life income pools. Life income pools are made up of the assets that you've received to fund charitable remainder trusts and charitable gift annuities. You generally have a separate pool for each. The investment policy statement will provide direction on how these assets are invested. Here is an example of an investment policy statement. This example comes from UC Davis. Your resources also include a complete sample document for you to gain further understanding. Please be sure to check that document, as well. Here's what is important to note about this document that would be applicable to other such documents. It outlines the investment strategy, asset allocation and performance measurement guidelines. These are all important factors to donors when they are considering your organization as trustee for their charitable remainder trust. You must have a sound investment policy or the donor may choose another trustee. It is always in the charity's best interest to serve as trustee, because that allows the charity to control the growth of those assets that ultimately will benefit them. They have a vested interest to doing an excellent job with investing the assets. Because ultimately, their cause will benefit. Now that we've covered the definitions of terms, let me show you the process you would use to document gift acceptance policies. Many charities have established documented gift acceptance policies. You don't need to recreate the wheel. I recommend that you select peer organizations and research their policies. Most charities are willing to share, then utilize the sample policies you receive to draft your own policy. The policy should be applicable to your organization. If your organization is not equipped to issue charitable gift annuities, then put that in the policy. In such a case, you would not include details and specifics on charitable gift that don't apply to your organization your documented gift acceptance policies. Once the policy has been drafted and get input and approval from the leadership, and any governing boards. You want all stakeholders to buy in to the policy since it will be something that everyone will have to live by. After the policy is finalized and approved, then share it with all appropriate staff. Documenting gift acceptance policies will provide significant benefits to donors. The main benefits are speed and efficiency. The biggest complaint that is heard from donors when they want to make a gift that includes a complex asset or a more complicated applying giving option is the bureaucracy and length of time to make a decision. It is not uncommon for charities to have gift acceptance committees to enforce their gift acceptance policy. Some believe this adds an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy. Having a policy employsure allow you to make quick decisions to meet the expectations of your donor. You want the donor to have an enjoyable experience when they're making a gift. So it's important to create a structure and policy that allows you to be responsive in a timely manner. Documenting gift acceptance policies will also provide significant benefits to the charitable organization. These include protecting the charity from taking unnecessary liability or risk in accepting gifts that have potential negative consequences. The policy also allows the charity to be systematic in securing planned gifts. You should not still be building the airplane while you're flying it. Having the policy in place will allow the charity to make better decisions and be more consistent in their application. You want to do everything to make sure that donor's perception of your charity is that the organization is fair, consistent, responsive and adopt best practices. Before we move on, let's recap what we've covered. After this lesson, you should now be able to explain what goes into a gift acceptance policy. Discuss the proper administration of planned gift to ensure policy compliance and list benefits to both the donor and charity from having good gift acceptance policies in place. In our next lesson, we will look at how to build strong teams in the context of plan giving administration.
