Endowment Memorandum of Understanding

 

A fully executed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) must be on file for every endowment and quasi-endowment fund held by the USM Foundation.

 

The USM Foundation Business Office is the office of record for all MOU’s.

  1. The development officer or his/her designee at the appropriate institution coordinates the production of a rough draft of the MOU (see the MOU Sample and the MOU Worksheet for guidance in preparing the draft.) Questions about the content of the draft should be directed to the USM Foundation General Counsel and our Business Support e-mail box.
  2. The draft is then circulated to the donor and appropriate university officials for revisions and/or clarifications. This step may need to happen multiple times as revisions to the original draft are made.
  3. A copy of the original draft and subsequent revisions must be sent to the USM Foundation General Counsel for review and approval before a final copy is produced. A completed Account Agreement Form must accompany the draft.
  4. When all revisions have been made and approved, the requesting institution will route the final version of the MOU for signature first to the donor, then to the institutional president and other designated institutional parties, and finally to the USM Foundation President or CFO for electronic signature.  Any electronic signature, including Adobe PDF, Word or DocuSign, will be considered an original signature for all purposes and will have the same force and effect as an original signature.  Without limitation, “electronic signature” also includes faxed versions of an original signature, electronically scanned and transmitted versions (e.g., via .pdf) of an original signature, and an individual’s name typed on a signature line and accompanied by an email or other written communication confirming that the individual signed the MOU.
  5. The USM Foundation will retain the copy of the MOU to the new account record in the financial software system which is typically done in connection with the setup of the Account Agreement Form mentioned in Step 3 above.
  6. Planned Gift Endowments are not established in the financial software until the defined terms of the gift are met. An Account Agreement Form should not be submitted with a Planned Gift Endowment MOU. Once the terms of the gift are met, the Account Agreement Form should be prepared and submitted with notification to the USM Foundation that it is ready to be established as an active endowment account. Please submit this notification and the Account Agreement form to our Business Support e-mail box.

 

 

Business Support Email: usmf-business-support@usmd.edu