- Before
- Can't tell a family how their money was spent until she knows it was spent the way they asked, and finds out at report time.
- Now
- Opens each fund at the donor's words with the year's charges already sorted, and approves after accounting on every reversal, use and report.
Endowment reporting for one fund, from a 1958 letter to a signed donor report
Halden State University, Wednesday, October 21, 2026: the year-end donor-intent review for FY2026, ahead of report season. Here is the Margaret Ellison Library Fund, F-10417, screen by screen in the working solution, from its typewritten gift letter to the endowment report its donor's granddaughter will read.
- 01Morning
The day in one sentence, then the funds that need a person
Celeste Marchetti · Director of Donor Relations and Stewardship47 funds need a person today. Overnight the agents sorted 1,126 new charges against the donors' own words: 14 do not fit and 41 are questions. Every row starts with the donor's words, then what the agents found. A notice says last night's ledger feed arrived at 11:40 PM, 100 minutes late, and every charge was still sorted by 2:10 AM.
186 funds are sitting on more than a year and a half of payout, and 1,614 donor reports are due by December 15, 2026.
- 02One click
The fund opens with the donor's own words
Celeste MarchettiThe purpose clause from Margaret Ellison's typewritten letter of April 14, 1958 sits at the top: for the purchase of books, manuscripts and maps on the history of the American West. Her 1981 bequest's addition sits beneath it. One cited line follows: $5,284,000 market value against a historic gift value of $1,150,000, not underwater; $232,600 FY2026 payout; $412,000 unspent, about 1.8 years of payout.
One charge does not fit. A $6,400 reception was charged to this fund; the reversal is drafted.
- 03Read from the scan
What the donor wrote, cited to page and paragraph
Terms agentThe agent read the 1958 letter as filed and the 1981 will, article IV, into nine cited terms. The overstruck word "manuscripts", read at 0.71, went to the steward and is confirmed. "Income only" is read under the state act, and "Not named: events, travel, salaries and licenses" is marked Inferred and waits for a person to confirm it before the agents rely on it.
- 04Overnight
Every charge in one of three lanes: Fits, Question, Does not fit
Spending agentThe year's 23 charges, $96,480, are sorted against the clause: 19 fit ($84,320), 3 are questions ($5,760) and 1 does not fit. Clicking it opens the ledger line beside the donor's words: a $6,400 Department of History faculty welcome reception, posted September 18, 2025, reference AP-2026-03318. The agent reads it as Does not fit at confidence 0.96: a reception is not a book, manuscript or map, and neither letter allows events.
- 0510:33 AM
A reversal that needs two named people before it posts
Daniel Osei · Endowment AccountantThe spending agent drafted journal entry JE-2027-10418: debit the History department's operating account 10-4410, credit the fund 20-10417, $6,400, not posted. Daniel approves with reason DI-01, outside the purpose clause. Celeste Marchetti approves second and it posts; the unspent balance goes from $412,000 to $418,400.
Every reversal needs two different named people, accounting first, then stewardship.
- 06Before anyone asks
Funds sitting on payout, with uses that fit
Underspend agent186 funds hold more than a year and a half of payout, $38.4 million in all. For each, the agent looked for requests already waiting in purchasing, the grants system and financial aid that fit the donor's words. For the Ellison fund it found 14 rare-book requests, $187,350. Financial aid shares counts of eligible need, never names.
- 0710:43 AM
Fourteen waiting requests confirmed, each cited, and three signatures
Dr. Helen Varga · University LibrarianEach request is cited to the 1958 letter or the 1981 bequest, such as an overland emigrant woman's diary of 1853 for $18,500. Two are left out with a reason: reading-room chairs and tables, because furniture is not a book, manuscript or map, and a medieval manuscript leaf, because it is not on the history of the American West. Dr. Varga confirms; the Endowment Accountant and the Director of Stewardship approve next, leaving $231,050, about one year of payout.
- 08Drafted the same morning
A donor impact report where every figure is a citation
Impact agentThe FY2026 letter to Ruth Ellison Carver says what the fund did: 19 purchases and repairs, $84,320; a value of $5,284,000 against the $1,150,000 given in 1958 and 1981; $232,600 paid to the library. Each figure is numbered, opens its source and matches the ledger. The reception is not in the letter, and the paragraph on the 14 October acquisitions stays out until all three people approve them.
Two approvals: the Endowment Accountant for the figures, then the Director of Stewardship, who sends it.
- 09Audit-ready
Every decision, with who, when, why and the evidence
Grace Thibodeaux · Internal auditorThe trail records people and agents alike: the spending agent placing the reception in Does not fit, Daniel Osei approving the reversal with reason DI-01, Celeste Marchetti approving and posting it, Dr. Varga confirming 14 acquisitions. Entries are never edited, and the evidence pack exports for the external auditor, the state attorney general or the board, with student identifiers redacted.