Gift Overhead Assessment
All gifts, both current use and endowment, are subject to a 20% overhead assessment that partially supports indirect program and administrative costs, such as Facilities, Payroll, Human Resources, Information Technology Services, Public Safety and other administrative support services. For current use gifts, the administrative assessment is charged at the time expenses are incurred and for endowments, when the payout is credited to the fund. Also, for the three-year period FY26-28, endowments will be assessed an additional 7.9% to fund additional institutional investments.
Expenses incurred for (i) tuition-reducing financial aid or (ii) capital projects are excluded from this assessment.
If a donor specifically disallows or reduces the administrative costs to be applied to otherwise eligible gifts, the department benefiting from the gift fund is responsible for covering the associated assessment shortfall from other sources, i.e. departmental funds. It is the responsibility of the Department to ensure that there are sufficient funds in the alternate funding sources to cover those overhead shortfall charges, incorporate any such substitution in their budget submission and inform the Budget Office accordingly.
Any exception to this policy is at the discretion of the (i) President, or (ii) collectively, the Provost and the Executive Vice-President.