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Contact Us!
For general questions, information, suggestions, or comments.
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Important Dates
5/1: New Administrator Training
9am-12pm.
Dashboard Training, 1:30pm-4pm USMF Offices, Conference Room 1.
Please note that space is limited.
5/21: Grant Administrator Training, 9am-11am
USMF Offices, Conference Room 1
5/30: Grant Administrator Training, 9am-11am
USMF Offices, Conference Room 1
6/6: Dashboard Training, 9am-11:30am, UMBC Campus University Center Room 312. Please RSVP to Liz Lander by May 29th.
6/12: Administrator Training, 1pm-4pm, UMBC Campus Commons Room 329. Please RSVP to Liz Lander by June 10th.
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Quick Links
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Looking Ahead
We are now contacting units to help us find copies of missing Memorandums of Understanding. Your assistance and prompt attention to these requests is appreciated.
Also, we continue to work on closing out operating accounts with small balances and may request your assistance. You can be proactive by identifying these accounts and letting us know where to transfer the balances. If you have any accounts with no activity in the past couple of years and a balance of $100 or less, please consider moving those funds to another account.
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Who We Are Director of Business Operations 301-445-1922
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Accounting Associate - Accounts Payable 301-445-2727
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Bernadette Mannone
Accounting Associate -
Gift Processing
301-445-2704 ______________________________
Dawn James
Administrative Assistant to the Vice President for Finance and CFO
301-445-2713 ______________________________
John Simcox
Staff Accountant and
Payroll Administrator
301-445-2734 ______________________________
Kate Koyfman
Investments Staff Accountant
301-445-2706 ______________________________
Linda Ringer
Client Relations Specialist
301-445-2717 ______________________________
Randy Possehl
Grants Coordinator and Staff Accountant Contracts
301-445-2710 ______________________________
Roy Hossler
Senior Executive Accountant
301-445-1949 ______________________________
Virginia (Ginger) Whelley
Assistant Comptroller
301-445-2726 ______________________________
Pam Purcell
Vice President of Finance and CFO, General Counsel
301-445-2720
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What's New! 
Spring is in the air and the definition of springtime is an early or flourishing stage of development. We wanted to bring you up to speed on some of our flourishing projects, as it's a season of renewal and growth.
USM Foundation Website
USM Foundation staff has finalized the layout and design of the new site and are moving toward the content migration stage. We will be reviewing, revising, and updating the content for the new site to make it more aligned with the look and feel of the new site.
In addition, the functionality will be greatly improved with better search capability, improved giving pages, and web-based forms. We will have weekly blog postings and up-to-date news from across the campuses. We believe these changes will greatly improve the communication between the USM Foundation and all our varied constituents.
We will be doing some beta testing before the final release in June and may ask for some help with that, so please stay tuned for further information. If you would be interested in participating, please send us an e-mail.
Finally, we will be incorporating a glossary of terms as part of our new content. If there is terminology that you hear or see us use that you are unfamiliar with and would like us to include in the glossary, please let us know.
Strategic Plan
There has been significant progress made on this project. We are actually in the process of putting the final draft of the plan in place. We had a terrific turnout at our February full board meeting where our board members participated and contributed in round table discussions regarding our mission and the overarching themes and goals for the next five years. Parsing, consolidating, and wordsmithing all of those ideas into a final document is what is now taking place. We are looking forward to sharing this with everyone once it is finalized and approved in a few months.
The Monthly Ledger
Finally, just a reminder that the Monthly Ledger is always available on the web - on the main page, you will always find the six most recent issues, and the older issues are available in our archive. Remember, the Monthly Ledger is for you! Please send us ideas for topics you would like to see covered - we are here to give you the information and tools you need.
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Help Us Help You!
DRF's for membership fees: If you are submitting a
disbursement request form to pay for a membership or any sort of payment situation where the payee would need to know why they are receiving a check, please make sure to include that documentation with your DRF. Too many times, we send a check to an organization and get called asking why the check was sent. Please make sure you provide an extra copy of your membership application or any necessary documentation to make the transaction purpose clear. Most importantly, please indicate on the front of the form that you would like the extra copy to be submitted with your check.
USMF Signatures: Just a reminder that we are a small staff and only certain staff members can sign specific documents such as grants, applications, contracts, etc. Those staff members are often in meetings, on business travel, or otherwise occupied - and in a lot of cases, all authorized signers are at the same meeting. We encourage you to build two or three days into your schedule to ensure that your documents are signed in a timely manner.
Additionally, we are aware emergency situations happen and will do our best to turn documents around quickly, but as a general rule, please plan ahead.
USMF Bank Wire Instructions: Please do not give out wiring instructions to donors, sponsors, grantors, etc. based on previous instructions you may have received from us. The USM Foundation has different bank accounts for different transactions, and require that wiring instructions be verified and confirmed each time there is a need.
To verify wiring instructions (which can be based on currency, country of origin, or business purpose), please send us an e-mail notifying us of who is sending the wire, the purpose, and the USMF project receiving the funds. If it is a foreign wire, please provide the country of origin and form of currency.
Most importantly, if our bank receives funds and we are not aware of the transfer or its purpose, the funds could be returned.
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Have You Ever Wondered...
What guidance we must follow when we determine the endowment spending rate each year?
Were you aware that there is actually state law that helps guide this decision? The law goes by the acronym of UPMIFA and stands for the
Uniform Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act. This law has been adopted by all but a few of the
states and was adopted in Maryland on April 14, 2009. UPMIFA is actually an update to prior legislation that had been in place since the early 1970's.
UPMIFA imposes duties on those who manage, invest, and spend charitable funds. These duties provide protection for charities and also protect the interests of donors who want to see their contributions used wisely.
The law defines endowment funds and has requirements regarding investment and management of those funds as well as how to modify or release restrictions on those funds. The law also outlines spending requirements. Specifically, the law says to first look to the endowment agreement to determine if the donor has directed that a specific dollar amount or percentage of an endowment fund be distributed each year. If that exists, then the donor-imposed restriction will govern. If that language does not exist, then
UPMIFA permits a charity to spend as much of an endowment fund as it deems "prudent."
On its own, the word "prudent" could be interpreted differently by different people so the law goes further and outlines factors that should be considered in making this determination. The seven factors to consider are:
- The duration and preservation of the fund
- The purposes of the charity and the fund
- General economic conditions
- The possible effect of inflation or deflation
- The expected total return from investments
- Other resources of the charity
- The charity's investment policy
In addition, the law specifically states that expenditures in any given year in excess of 7% would be considered imprudent (the 7% includes fees + spending rate).
Our Spending Policy Committee works closely with our Investment Committee and USM Foundation staff members to take into consideration the current investment environment, economic conditions, and resource needs. Deliberate discussion takes place and a rate for the new year is then set.
No magic...no hocus pocus...Just a lot of hard work and thought from our staff and board volunteers with a guidance from UPMIFA.
Sourced from www.upmifa.org
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