NTHU-NA Foundation Treasury Committee
2024 Summary Report
By In-Yuan Li
Math 70,72G, Head of the Treasury Committee
02/23/2025
Summary
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The Foundation granted $3,542,760.64 to NTHU in 2024.
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The total disbursed amount to NTHU is more than $10M in 6 years.
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The disbursement frequency to NTHU has increased semiannually to quarterly.
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The Foundation has reduced the processing fee significantly since Jan. 1, 2025.
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Bank wire transfers to NTHU can now be initiated online by any authorized signer.
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The accounting system has moved to the cloud (QuickBooks Online).
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The Foundation has hired an external CPA for auditing and IRS tax returns.
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IRA/QCD donations have become more popular.
It has been 6 years since the establishment of the National Tsing Hua University North America Foundation in 2018. Last year, the Treasury committee published a five-year summary report. The report summarized the past 5 years of financial status as well as the vision of the Treasury Committee of the Foundation. At the same time, we also expressed our appreciation to the donors and the selfless volunteers for their support. We hope alumni have a chance to read that report. The Foundation plans to publish a financial summary report yearly, to help alumni understand our financial status and the progress of our operations.
We are very pleased to report that since 2018 the Foundation has wired in total $10,650,003.48 to support NTHU to achieve its excellence in education. In 2024 alone, the Foundation wired $3,542,760.64 to NTHU. Thanks to many generous donations from alumni and friends of NTHU.
This report focuses on the finance status and operations of the Treasury for the year 2024. The Treasury committee published a 2024 mid-year summary report last September. This summary may have some overlaps with that report.
Finance Report
A. The Donation Income
The total donation during 2024 exceeded $3 million. There were 134 donations by 80 unique donors. including 50 first-time donors, a significant increase from the year before. The number of donors was much fewer than the number of donations because some donors made multiple donations; some made monthly or even semi-monthly donations. The donation methods include ACH transfers, bank wire transfers, Zelle, PayPal, stock transfers, and checks. We welcome all donations regardless of the methods. Alumni normally are very supportive of donation activities for their graduation anniversaries such as 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 years etc. and give back to NTHU. The spirit of giving back to school is a wonderful gesture and admirable.
B. Frequency of disbursements
In 2024, we changed the number of disbursements to NTHU from 2 to 4 times a year. The donation cut-off dates are the last day of each quarter and the disbursements were scheduled in the months of April, July, October, and January. 2024, we wired 3 times to NTHU as scheduled above. The 2024 Q4 donations were disbursed in January 2025.
The process of disbursement is as follows: (1) NTHU and the Foundation has a disbursement preparation meeting, (2) NTHU submits a grant application to the Foundation, (3) review and approval by the Legal & Compliance Committee and the Treasury Committee, (4), the Treasury Committee transfers the funds to NTHU.
C. Reduction of the Processing Fee:
The Foundation collects low processing fees to cover our operation costs (the Foundation is run by non-paid volunteers). Examples of operation costs: CPA, tax auditing, governments registration fees, web hosting, and bookkeeping software. Starting January 1st, 2025, the Foundation further lowered the processing fees to the following:
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$1M or less: 1%
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Over $1M: 0.5%
There may be bank/platform fees associated with some donation methods. For example, PayPal charges a 2% platform fee; some banks may charge fees for ACH and Wire transfers.
Summary of Operations
A. Online Financial Operations
The Treasury committee is continuously striving for excellence by simplifying the operations, promoting online access, and sharing the access with multiple Treasury Committee members so that it will be easier to pass the operation to future generations.
The Foundation opened a new brokerage account with Vanguard, which has become a center of our financial operations. It is linked with most of our bank accounts as well as NTHU’s bank accounts in Taiwan. Now wire transferring funds to NTHU becomes easier; it can be initiated online by any of our bank signers without paying wire transfer fees.
With the Vanguard account, the Foundation can accept stock donations. Foundation’s policy is to sell the stocks as soon as they are received by Vanguard.
B. Hired a CPA
The Foundation hired a new Certified Public Accountant (CPA) during the year 2024. This new CPA has the responsibility to review our donation income and the funds that were disbursed to NTHU. She is also responsible for preparing our annual Tax report to the IRS. The foundation is registered in the state of New Jersey and Delaware, and the New Jersey government requires the foundation to have an independent accountant to audit our financial statements and report to the NJ government as a non-profit organization. Foundation has signed a contract with this CPA for the next 3 years.
C. Improved Communication with NTHU
The Foundation has shared some donation information with NTHU; for example, NTHU can see the donation preferences and donation amounts. Unless the donors choose to be anonymous, they will receive a thank-you letter directly from NTHU in addition to a thank-you letter (which also serves as a tax receipt) from the Foundation. The Foundation respects the wishes of the donors. If the donors choose to be anonymous, then personal information will not be shared.
The Treasury committee wishes to remind all the donors to fill out the online donation form with the donation preference along with contact information. When no preference is specified, the donation will be designated to the Foundation operation fund. Please also indicate on the donation form if there are matching funds associated with the donation, from what organization, and specify the preference for the matching fund. If no preference is specified, then the matching fund will be dedicated to the original preference.
NTHU tracks the accumulated donation amount for each donor and will invite donors to join the Tsing Hua Club One Hundred if the total accumulated amount reaches a certain threshold. The Foundation also tracks the accumulated donations through us and will remind NTHU of the eligibility to join the club.
D. SOP Documentation
The Treasury committee also keeps the Standard Operation Procedure (SOP) for each task to help pass on to the leaders of the next generation. For example, the Foundation needs to report to two states — Delaware and New Jersey — to register our non-profit organization status by the deadlines. These processes are clearly documented.
E. Online Bookkeeping
The Foundation has migrated the bookkeeping system from a desktop software to QuickBooks Online so that the information is more secure and can be accessed by multiple members. Our external CPA is also able to view it online and retrieve all information required for auditing and IRS tax returns.
F. Increased Matching Fund Organizations
In 2024, we received the amount of $23,400 from the company gift matching funds. Many donors utilized the Corporation Matching Fund programs. Currently, we receive the matching funds from the following companies: AT&T, Shell Oil, AXA, Boeing, Broadcom, Pfizer Foundation, Google, Meta, Apple, Samsung, Synopsys, etc. We encourage the donors to participate in the matching fund programs through their companies. If the company has a donation matching fund program and our Foundation is not on the list, the donors can ask the company to add our Foundation to it. We encourage every donor to check with the company.
G. IRA/QCD Donation is up
Foundation received many inquiries about Qualified Charitable Distributions (QCD) from IRAs. The donations with QCD have increased. For the retirees, please consider the option of donating via IRA/QCD. Foundation has some QCD information on the website (https://www.nthu-na-foundation.org/gifts-from-retirement-accounts). The donors should also check the latest federal and state regulations.
Top Donation Choices
Table 2 shows that the Foundation has funded many projects to help NTHU achieve educational excellence in the world. The renovation of Cheng Kung Lake is completed and very prominent; the Junshan Concert Hall is still under renovation and may need more funding to complete. Many alumni are supporting the Sunrise Scholarships, department scholarships, Talent Funds, CTM New Building, Childhood Education Endowment Funds, Wish Comes True Scholarship, and more.
Many thanks to all the alumni and friends of NTHU for the generous donations and support for NTHU. Simultaneously, much appreciation to Treasury Committee/Foundation members for their selfless devotions. Let’s keep up the excellent work and carry on! We wish everyone a prosperous and great new year!