Individuals or groups who wish to honor or memorialize an individual who is or was a member of SICB may make a donation to one of the existing student support funds [Charlotte Mangum Student Support Program or Grants in Aid of Research (GIAR)/Fellowship for Graduate Student Travel (FGST)] and SICB will provide one (or more) of these awards in the honoree’s name. The minimum donation to name one of these awards is $1,000. For each $1,000 donation, one of the awards made to a student for one year will be designated with the name of the honoree. For example, a $10,000 donation to the Charlotte Mangum Student Support Fund in honor of or in the memory of John Doe would result in ten of the Mangum awards being called the John Doe awards for one year, or five of the awards for two years, or one named award for 10 years. Donors would be free to designate which of the above student support funds would receive the donation and the number/duration of the awards.

A mechanism will be set up on the SICB web site to receive proposals for these donations. The SICB Executive Director will be listed as the contact person to receive inquiries and answer questions. It is understood that some flexibility in establishing SICB named awards should be maintained. If specific issues arise that need to be addressed, the SICB Finance Committee is empowered to make decisions.

Rationale

The goal of this proposal is to increase the principal of the Mangum and GIAR/FGST funds, and to honor specific past or present SICB members. It would not preclude donors from contributing to other named funds that are already established. All donations would be added to the principal and the annual disbursement of support would not change – there would be no additional awards made based upon donations described above. One or more of the current awards would be named for an honoree.

This would be an excellent way to educate our students about the heritage of the Society and the luminaries in their fields. Moreover, the procedure would not require any additional committees. Students would be evaluated for the support award programs in the same manner as is currently in practice, and those receiving named awards will be identified after selection and notified of the association of their award.

This is a win-win proposal. The principal of these student support funds will grow. We don’t change the amount dispersed annually, and we simply name one of the awards that we are already making for an honoree. If this works really well, the student support funds can eventually become self-sufficient and could even grow, increasing the number of students we support.

Accounting

The donated funds will be added to the principal of the Mangum or GIAR/FGST fund (as opposed to being used to fund a given award in the year the donation is made). The student awards will continue to be funded annually as they are now, and there is no planned increase in the amount to be awarded each year via Mangum or GIAR/FGST student support. However, the annual amount of usable funds generated by investment of the principal will grow as the principal grows.

approved April 25, 2016