Fundraising Policy

The Office of Advancement, Alumni and Community Relations (AACR) coordinates all of the fundraising appeals to the following University constituents: alumni, Board of Trustees, students, parents, faculty, staff, friends, local businesses, corporations and foundations.

The Office of AACR is also responsible for fundraising for The Heidelberg Fund, which is the revenue needed to meet the University's educational and general expenses every year. The Heidelberg Fund supports every aspect of academic and student life at Heidelberg.

We need to make sure that all fundraising efforts complement and not compete with the University's efforts to secure financial support. Students, faculty, staff or University- affiliated organizations all play an important role in these relationships with our donors. We need you to work with us to maximize the results for all of us at Heidelberg.

On-Campus Fundraisers

• If your fundraising project involves something simple, like tabling outside of Hoernemann for a bake sale or selling bracelets, trinkets, t-shirts, ticketed performances, or personal chore services, stop by the AACR Office in the University Hall and talk to the director of Annual Giving & Alumni Engagement first. This is known as "inside" fundraising, i.e., it is open to only the Heidelberg community of students, faculty, and staff.
• Multiple campus fundraisers being held on the same day may result in less money being collected by each organization. Therefore, a fundraising calendar is maintained of all approved fundraising events. In general, no more than two fundraisers will be approved for a specific day.
• Campus fundraisers may not occur on the following blackout days (see campus calendar for each of the specific dates)
  • Reading Day, which is the day prior to the first final exam period each semester.
  • Giving Tuesday
  • Day of Giving
  • TAG Day
  • Homecoming
  • Alumni Weekend
• In accordance with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) regulations, the University cannot issue gift receipts for these transactions.
• Groups often ask if they can solicit people to give to a cause and then enter donors into a raffle for a prize. This is not allowed; you may only do a drawing for a prize if there are no conditions to enter the prize drawing in the first place. Check with the AACR office before planning such a drawing. See below for more information related to raffles.

Off-Campus Fundraisers

• If your group wishes to do something more, such as solicit local businesses for in-kind donations, or if you wish to solicit alumni for a project or experience, this is considered "outside" fundraising. You will need to complete the Fundraising Planning Form on Inside under Documents and Forms. Appropriate parties to approve fundraising requests will be notified once a request is submitted. If you have questions, please call Sydney Hieronymus, Director of Annual Giving & Alumni Engagement at 419-448-2059 or contact by email at shierony@heidelberg.edu.
• Please note that if your project involves sending any forms of communication, we MUST have a copy of that publication and it must be reviewed by AACR staff before it is sent.

There are some black-out periods for fundraising. No fundraising appeals from departments, organizations, teams, clubs, fraternities or societies may occur during Homecoming (see campus calendar), Giving Tuesday (Tuesday after Thanksgiving), December (end of the tax/calendar year), Day of Giving (see campus calendar), TAG Day (see campus calendar) and May and June (end of the University's fiscal year).

These are the times when the University is fundraising among constituents in support of The Heidelberg Fund and other University priorities.

Heidelberg University prohibits the use of University trademarks and University- provided or University-originated contact lists (mailing lists, phone lists, email lists, directories, and the like) for the solicitation of funds to benefit specific individuals as individuals do not have designated 501(c) 3 non-profit status.

Fundraising efforts, however, to recognize an individual associated with the University where the resulting funds are used to benefit the University (e.g. classroom to honor a retiring faculty member or a book fund to memorialize a deceased staff member or student) are permitted. All such fundraising efforts fall under this policy and should be coordinated through the Office of Advancement, Alumni and Community Relations (AACR).

Student run organizations are not permitted to conduct raffles or reverse raffles because of accountability and liability issues related to the University’s status as a nonprofit 501- c3 organization.  If a raffle is held, the staff member, administrator or faculty member must keep accurate records according for that contain the following:

• When the raffle was held.
• Who organized the raffle and what was the purpose.
• How many tickets were sold?
• How much money was grossed?
• Who were the recipients of the proceeds/prizes, etc?
• The dollar amounts of the aforementioned prizes/payouts, etc.
• How much money net of all expenses/payouts was received by Heidelberg?
• Further information is available from the Office of Advancement, Alumni and Community Relations (AACR)

In spite of the popularity of “crowdsourcing” websites such as gofundme.com, crowdrise, fundable, kickstarter and indiegogo.com, AACR does not permit students, faculty or staff to fundraise on these third party donation based sites for any Heidelberg projects, events or programs.  This does not mean we condone students to conduct these for individual efforts.