Donation policy

BACKGROUND.

Sim­pact Foun­da­tion is a phil­an­thropic impact invest­ment fund based in Zam­bia that believes that Social Impact Invest­ments can pro­vide alter­na­tive inno­v­a­tive sources of sus­tain­able fund­ing that can address social issues such as Gen­der eco­nom­ic inequal­i­ty and edu­ca­tion for the most vul­ner­a­ble chil­dren. Sim­pact Foun­da­tion seeks dona­tions that will sup­port its mis­sion through the grant­i­ng of pro­gram funds, tech­ni­cal assis­tance, and pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment in order to meet the fol­low­ing objec­tives:

1. Women Eco­nom­ic Empow­er­ment– Impact invest­ing to address gen­der eco­nom­ic inequal­i­ties through sus­tain­able and afford­able fund­ing.
2. Access to mar­ket for the small scale farm­ers.

• Fund access to Basic edu­ca­tion for vul­ner­a­ble chil­dren by pro­vid­ing edu­ca­tion­al tools such as books, desks and oth­er school infra­struc­ture.

1. Fund­ing school feed­ing pro­grams in order to pro­vide basic nutri­tion for vul­ner­a­ble chil­dren required at their crit­i­cal growth stage.
2. Pro­vide finan­cial sup­port for Sim­pact Foundation’s oper­a­tions.

 

DEFINITIONS

(A) DONATION

An irrev­o­ca­ble and vol­un­tary trans­fer of cash and kind, from indi­vid­u­als, indus­try, foun­da­tions and oth­er sources to ben­e­fit Sim­pact Foun­da­tion for either unre­strict­ed or restrict­ed uti­liza­tion in the oper­a­tions of Sim­pact foun­da­tion. Donations/gifts are made with­out expec­ta­tion of return. No Quid Pro Quo or con­sid­er­a­tion (out­side of appro­pri­ate recog­ni­tion) to the donor or to any­one des­ig­nat­ed by the donor may result from the pay­ment. Cash: Cash gifts are accept­able in any form, includ­ing by check, mon­ey order, cred­it card, or on-line. Donors wish­ing to make a gift by cred­it card must pro­vide the card type (e.g., Visa, Mas­ter­Card, and Amer­i­can Express), card num­ber, expi­ra­tion date, and name of the card hold­er as it appears on the cred­it card.

(B) DONATION ACCEPTANCE COMMITTEE

Func­tions of this com­mit­tee shall fall under the Sim­pact Foun­da­tion Board Fundrais­ing Com­mit­tee.

©DONATIONS-IN-KIND

Dona­tions –in-kind are non­cash dona­tions of mate­ri­als, con­sult­ing ser­vices, exec­u­tive loan pro­grams, com­put­er equip­ment, soft­ware, print­ed mate­ri­als, food, or oth­er vol­un­tary ser­vices, as long as such gifts rep­re­sent val­ue to Sim­pact Foun­da­tion.

 (D) GRANTS

A “grant” is cash giv­en to an indi­vid­ual or an organ­i­sa­tion for a spe­cif­ic pur­pose. There is an oblig­a­tion to ful­fil any cri­te­ria the fund­ing body may place upon the grant i.e. to ensure the project that is fund­ed sat­is­fies their aims and objec­tives and pro­ceeds as out­lined dur­ing the grant appli­ca­tion process. Fund­ing bod­ies usu­al­ly require some lev­el of pro­file in return for their grant and this should be in pro­por­tion to the size of grant and agreed in writ­ing before accept­ing the grant. This is usu­al­ly in the form of a logo or line of cred­it with agreed word­ing in pub­lic­i­ty. Grants should always be doc­u­ment­ed in some form of writ­ten agree­ment between the par­ties. Grants are not sub­ject to VAT.

(E) UNRESTRICTED DONATIONS

Dona­tions, includ­ing grants, giv­en to Sim­pact Foun­da­tion, where the donor has not spec­i­fied the pur­pose for which the gift is to be used. These gifts shall be used for char­i­ta­ble pur­pos­es with­in the mis­sion of Sim­pact Foun­da­tion.

(F)RESTRICTED GIFTS

Gifts, giv­en to Sim­pact Foun­da­tion, where the donor has spec­i­fied that the gift be used to sup­port a par­tic­u­lar pur­pose, and as such are tracked and report­ed sep­a­rate­ly on both finan­cial and pro­gram­mat­ic lev­els.

(G) REAL ESTATE

A gift of real prop­er­ty requires legal trans­fer of assets.

 

PURPOSE OF THE POLICY

The pur­pose of this pol­i­cy is to pro­vide pri­or­i­ties and projects with appro­pri­ate inde­pen­dence from its Donors. This Pol­i­cy also aims at pro­vid­ing trans­paren­cy regard­ing the iden­ti­ty of the Sim­pact Foundation’s sources of fund­ing to avoid any sus­pi­cion of inap­pro­pri­ate influ­ence or con­flicts of inter­est con­cern­ing the organization’s activ­i­ties. Exam­ples may include: risks that accept­ing fund­ing could pose to Sim­pact Foundation’s activ­i­ties or its direct part­ners and rep­u­ta­tion­al risk and pro­tect­ing the NGO’s brand. Sim­pact Foun­da­tion will apply the poli­cies and con­sid­er­a­tions set forth in this Pol­i­cy prospec­tive­ly as of the date here­of to all types and amounts of fund­ing from all sources, irre­spec­tive of whether the organ­i­sa­tion has made deci­sions in the past to accept fund­ing incon­sis­tent with the poli­cies and prin­ci­ples set forth in this Pol­i­cy.

 POLICY STATEMENT

Sim­pact Foun­da­tion solic­its and accepts gifts for pur­pos­es that will help the organ­i­sa­tion fur­ther and ful­fil its mis­sion. Sim­pact Foun­da­tion urges all prospec­tive indi­vid­ual and insti­tu­tion­al donors to seek the assis­tance of legal and finan­cial advi­sors in mat­ters relat­ing to their dona­tions, includ­ing pos­si­ble tax and estate plan­ning con­se­quences. The fol­low­ing poli­cies and guide­lines gov­ern accep­tance of gifts made to Sim­pact Foun­da­tion for the ben­e­fit of any of its oper­a­tions, pro­grams or ser­vices.

All dona­tions to Sim­pact Foun­da­tion must be in accor­dance with the over­all mis­sion of the orga­ni­za­tion; its poli­cies and direc­tives; and nation­al laws and reg­u­la­tions.

All deci­sions to solic­it and/or accept poten­tial­ly con­tro­ver­sial gifts will be made by the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor and Two oth­er mem­bers of the Board – this will make up the fund­ing com­mit­tee.

The Sim­pact Foun­da­tion Dona­tions Accep­tance com­mit­tee will meet periodically/when a review is required. The com­mit­tee will keep records/minutes sum­ma­riz­ing dis­cus­sions and deci­sions, and will under­take an annu­al review of the Dona­tions pol­i­cy to deter­mine if any amend­ments are nec­es­sary.

 REVIEW PROCEDURE

When con­sid­er­ing whether to solic­it or accept gifts, Sim­pact will typ­i­cal­ly con­sid­er, but not be lim­it­ed by, the fol­low­ing fac­tors:

• Values—whether the accep­tance of the dona­tion com­pro­mis­es any of the core val­ues and mis­sion of Sim­pact Foun­da­tion
• Compatibility—whether there is com­pat­i­bil­i­ty between the intent of the donor and the organization’s use of the dona­tion
• Pub­lic Relationships—whether accep­tance of the dona­tion will dam­age the rep­u­ta­tion of Sim­pact foun­da­tion
• Pri­ma­ry Benefit—whether the pri­ma­ry ben­e­fit is to Sim­pact Foun­da­tion, ver­sus the donor
• Consistency—is accep­tance of the dona­tion con­sis­tent with pri­or prac­tice?
• Form of donation—is the dona­tion offered in a form that Sim­pact Foun­da­tion can use with­out incur­ring sub­stan­tial expense or dif­fi­cul­ty?
• Effect on Future Giving—will the dona­tion encour­age or dis­cour­age future dona­tions?

 

RESTRICTIONS ON DONATIONS

Sim­pact Foun­da­tion will not accept dona­tions that

• would result in vio­lat­ing its mis­sion,
• would result in Sim­pact Foun­da­tion los­ing its sta­tus as a reg­is­tered NGO,
• are too dif­fi­cult or too expen­sive to admin­is­ter in rela­tion to their val­ue,
• would result in any unac­cept­able con­se­quences  or
• Are for pur­pos­es out­side Simpact’s mis­sion. Deci­sions on the restric­tive nature of a dona­tion, and its accep­tance or refusal, shall be made by the Dona­tions accep­tance com­mit­tee, in accor­dance with the Sim­pact Foun­da­tions’ Dona­tion Accep­tance Review Pro­ce­dure.

DONATIONS GENERALLY ACCEPTED WITHOUT REVIEW

• Dona­tions from donors that explic­it­ly share the mis­sion and val­ues of Sim­pact Foun­da­tion
• Dona­tions from donors with which Sim­pact  has an estab­lished and ben­e­fi­cial fund­ing rela­tion­ship
• Dona­tions from non-con­tro­ver­sial donors

 

DONATION ACCEPTED SUBJECT TO PRIOR REVIEW

Cer­tain forms of gifts or dona­tions may be sub­ject to review pri­or to accep­tance. Exam­ples of dona­tions sub­ject to pri­or review include, but are not lim­it­ed to:

• Dona­tions from unknown or unfa­mil­iar donors with which Sim­pact Foun­da­tion does not have an estab­lished fund­ing rela­tion­ship.
• Dona­tions from insti­tu­tion­al donors (includ­ing foun­da­tions, for­eign gov­ern­ment agen­cies, cor­po­ra­tions, cor­po­rate foun­da­tions, or for-prof­it enti­ties) that might not implic­it­ly or explic­it­ly share the core val­ues of Sim­pact foun­da­tion.
• Dona­tions that require review by legal coun­sel: E.g. secu­ri­ties, tan­gi­ble per­son­al prop­er­ty, life insur­ance, or real estate.
• Dona­tions that could lead to con­flicts of inter­est.
• Dona­tions that include sig­nif­i­cant restric­tions.

USE OF LEGAL COUNSEL

Sim­pact foun­da­tion will seek the advice of legal coun­sel in mat­ters relat­ing to accep­tance of dona­tions when deemed appro­pri­ate. Review by coun­sel is rec­om­mend­ed for:

• Dona­tions of secu­ri­ties that are sub­ject to restric­tions or buy-sell agree­ments.
• Doc­u­ments nam­ing Sim­pact as trustee or requir­ing Sim­pact Foun­da­tion to act in any fidu­cia­ry capac­i­ty.
• Dona­tions requir­ing Sim­pact Foun­da­tion to assume finan­cial or oth­er oblig­a­tions.
• Trans­ac­tions with poten­tial con­flicts of inter­est.
• Gifts of prop­er­ty which may be sub­ject to envi­ron­men­tal or oth­er reg­u­la­to­ry restric­tions.

 

 POLICY REVIEW

In order to ensure that this Pol­i­cy con­tin­ues to be effec­tive, it shall be reviewed peri­od­i­cal­ly. Sim­pact Foun­da­tion Exec­u­tive Direc­tor is respon­si­ble for ini­ti­at­ing this review by the Board at inter­vals not to exceed three (3) years.