Partnered with the Missouri School of Journalism
Gift Acceptance Policy
Purpose:
To provide guidance to staff and to prospective funders interested in making gifts to the Alfred and Jean Friendly Foundation and its program, the Alfred Friendly Press Partners (AFPP). This policy also will guide the Friendly Foundation board and leadership.
Background:
The Friendly Foundation’s mission is to uplift journalism around the world by preparing journalists from information-hungry societies to practice professional, ethical and innovative journalism that meets globally recognized, high standards of journalism. We accomplish our mission through hands-on training and education at the Missouri School of Journalism and in U.S. and international newsrooms.
Outside funding raised by the Foundation covers the training, education and living expenses of journalists accepted into an AFPP program, as well as program expenses. This gift acceptance policy defines how we accept and recognize donations to the Foundation and how we relate to funders.
The Friendly Foundation and AFPP program are committed to journalistic ethics and institutional accountability and believe that there are many individuals, foundations, organizations, companies and government entities that share those objectives.
We seek to protect:
- Avoid paying capital gains tax on the increased value of the stock
- Receive an income-tax deduction for the full fair-market value of the stock at the time of the gift.
*The Center for Public Integrity’s gift acceptance policy heavily influenced this policy, and in some cases the language is similar.
Protecting the mission:
Funding sought and accepted by the Friendly Foundation will be driven by priorities set during the Board of Directors’ strategic planning process. Donations will fund the ethical and technical training, education and support of visiting journalists. Donations will not fund specific journalism articles.
Responsibility for the policy:
The Friendly Foundation board is responsible for setting the policy and for ensuring that it is followed. The executive director and advancement director are responsible for vetting prospective donors and preparing donation proposals in accordance with this policy. The board will review this gifts acceptance policy regularly and update it as needed.
Funding accepted by the Friendly Foundation for the Alfred Friendly Press Partners:
The Friendly Foundation generally accepts donations made by individuals, foundations, non-governmental organizations and media companies to fund the Alfred Friendly Press Partners and its participants.
While the Foundation does not generally accept donations from governments or corporations, exceptions may arise, and these exceptions would be reviewed by the board before a formal proposal is made.
When weighing proposals for government or corporate donations, the board will discuss questions including:
- Does accepting this gift influence or give the appearance of influencing the journalism produced during the fellowship or in the future?
- Does affiliating with this government or corporation adversely affect the brand and reputation of the Friendly Foundation or the Alfred Friendly Press Partners?
Separately, governments or government agencies may occasionally seek to pay the Alfred Friendly Press Partners to design and conduct briefer training programs for specific groups of overseas journalists. In those cases, the money received will be directed to cover the costs of the specific training program only and will not be viewed as a donation. In general, we believe these journalism trainings extend the impact of our core mission. Proposals for government-funded training programs will be reviewed by the board before they are submitted to the funding entity.