Both the tax system and the culture of giving (that is, the willingness to talk about one’s money or wealth) must change in the UK if higher education institutions are to be developed that can survive with less reliance on direct funding. of the government, probably for lack of that is how it has become so strongly supported by the state in the first instance.
In the last edition of CASE Currents, there was an article about public institutions in the US being the “poor cousin” of private institutions in terms of endowments, which puts them at a clear disadvantage in terms of competitiveness, particularly in the current economic climate, where both donations and government subsidies are declining.
There was an “international” perspective provided by Times Higher Education Editor Ann Mroz, who spoke about a campaign the UK magazine was running on behalf of its (fully public) universities called #loveHE, which was trying to to change the opinion of the British public. lack of connection between what universities do and societal benefit…which in turn led to a lack of support in a time of budget cuts…which in turn can lead to a lack of UK competitiveness United as a whole in the longer term.
So why don’t UK universities try to bridge the gap between public funding and operating costs with philanthropy, as public and private universities in North America have done? According to Francisco Ramírez, a professor of education at Stanford University, American universities “are looking for legitimacy and dollars.” As Mroz concludes, the UK “doesn’t have a tradition of hustle and bustle, particularly in higher education”.
I agree that this is part of the problem. But the other part is that the tax system is simply not set up in a way that gives donors a real incentive to give.
Gift aid, the most popular donation method, is simply an afterthought and doesn’t really require the donor to put money in their pockets; instead, the government provides a matching measure in part of, for example, an entrance fee or a donation. already requested by any other means. It’s also not clear to me whether these gifts are maximized: the receiving organization must assume that everyone is simply in the lowest tax bracket, unless they are sure otherwise (in which case, the match may be even higher, up to 50 %), but this information is not requested from the average donor (annual or small gift).
Assuming a donor completes an annual self-assessment form (many UK taxpayers don’t – they use a system called PAYE which employers submit on behalf of an employee), they can claim their gift support and then decide to keep the refund for themselves, OR donate the aid back – to ONE charity. Most charities don’t even write to their donor lists to ask them to remember them at tax time!
Payroll donation is the most fiscally (before-tax) effective form of donation and, like North American systems, individual donors get all the benefits, giving them the greatest incentive to donate. donate, and it still doesn’t require them to file a tax return. return. However, I have hardly seen organizations that promote this! Bequests/bequests and stock gifts are also possible, but I have never met a planned gifts officer at any advancement office in the UK (if there is one).
Both the tax system and the culture of giving (that is, the willingness to talk about one’s money or wealth) must change in the UK if institutions are to be developed that can survive with less reliance on direct government funding, probably the lack of these. it’s how it has become so strongly supported by the state in the first place.
But this will help established charities that have a more emotional connection (such as Cancer Research UK) before helping universities, where attending has become something of a right, although this is changing. A clearer case for the value of universities (such as the effort put in by THE’s #lovehe campaign and UUK’s ‘Universities Week’) and their contribution to UK society and economy would also be welcome, though facts and figures do not attract attention. It moves as case studies and individual profiles do, as successful charities know only too well…
Recent Higher Education Funding Council for England and Wales matching grant programs should also help, although the impact has not been as great as might be expected, for some of the reasons listed above. A couple of well-established universities in the UK, such as Oxford, have major campaigns underway, and more and more are getting started. This will also help, although many key fundraisers were imported from the US and Canada in the past, but more and more are being grown at home, which bodes well for cultural change.