Guide to Giving

Your gift today is tomorrow’s legacy

Lay the foundation for the Foundation Chapter’s future: Your gift today is tomorrow’s legacy. You make the difference when you give to the Foundation Chapter – for students, alumni, campuses where Theta Chi Fraternity is represented, and the world.

Online giving

You can make a gift to either the General Fund or a Chapter-Specific Scholarship Fund online using the Make a Gift form.

Types of Gifts

When you make a gift to the Foundation Chapter, you have tremendous flexibility in determining how the funds will be used, as well as many options for making your gift.

Unrestricted gifts are among the most valuable to the Foundation Chapter, because they allow the fraternity to allocate funds wherever the need is greatest, and to take advantage of unique opportunities as they arise. Your unrestricted gift may be used to support costs associated with grants, scholarships, alumni relations, communications efforts, and much more.

Restricted gifts allow you to designate your gift to leadership grants, academic scholarships, or alumni communications. When you make a restricted gift to the Foundation Chapter, you enjoy the satisfaction of knowing you are supporting a program that is personally meaningful to you.

You also have the option of designating your gift for current use or for endowment. Current-use gifts provide funds and flexibility over the short term, whereas endowment gifts provide security over the long term by expanding the fraternity’s permanent financial base and creating a predictable source of future income for such things as grants, scholarships, alumni relations, or even communications efforts.

Ways to Give

Outright Gifts

When you make an outright gift to the Foundation Chapter, your contribution can be put to work immediately – either providing funding for current programs or creating a reliable source of future income by expanding the fraternity’s endowment. An outright gift may be composed of almost any asset of value:

Cash gifts can be made via credit/debit card, outright cash, or personal checks, cashier’s checks, or money orders made payable to the Foundation Chapter. The fraternity also has an ACH account; please contact a staff member for details about making an ACH transfer to the Foundation Chapter.

Gifts of appreciated securities, stocks, and bonds also provide considerable tax advantages when transferred to the Foundation Chapter before they are sold. If you have held your securities for more than one year, you may find that your gift will provide a twofold tax benefit, creating an income tax deduction as well as helping avoid the capital gains tax that would have been due on their sale. You may transfer stocks from a broker’s account, make a gift of physical securities on hand, and make a gift of mutual funds, non-marketable stock, or closely held stock. Contact a staff member for information about giving these types of securities.

Gifts of real estate, including personal residences, second homes, income property, and vacant land – offer a wide variety of tax and other benefits. Whereas most people give their entire interest away, it is also possible to give only a portion of the property (an undivided percentage interest) while retaining the rest for other purposes.

Gifts of personal property, including rare books, works of art, valuable collectibles, and tangible items of demonstrable value – in some cases may enable you to make a significant gift to support the Foundation Chapter with outstanding tax benefits to you. Likewise, gifts of intangible personal property, such as copyrights, patents, and mineral rights can generate income for the program of your choice on a continuing basis.

Planned gifts

To learn about deferred or planned gifts, including bequests, life-income plans, and other options for your estate– and for information about increasing your income, earning valuable income-tax deductions, and reducing your estate taxes– please contact a staff member.

Matching gift programs

An easy way to double or even triple your contribution to the Foundation Chapter is to find out if your company has a matching gift program. Such programs typically match all or a percentage of employee contributions to charitable organizations, making the employer a partner in employees’ personal philanthropy. Simply obtain a matching gift form from your employer’s personnel office, fill it out, and provide it to the Foundation Chapter with your contribution.