Spotlight on Stewardship

Marie Olavere, one of OCFR's Development Coordinators, is here to answer your questions about stewardship!  

What is stewardship?

The key aim of practicing good stewardship is to maintain your relationship with a funder as this also facilitates the process of maintaining the funders' overall relationship with the university. We, at Rice, have a few ways of practicing good and active stewardship. If you've ever given me information on your research or project for a presidential acknowledgment letter for contributions you've received, you have engaged in one of the methods of active stewardship we practice! Other methods we practice at Rice include submitting grant reports to companies or foundations who request them; sending annual reports on endowed chair or professor positions as well as scholarships; and organizing donor visits.

What is OCFR's role in stewardship?

Our main goal is to help you succeed in maintaining your relationship with your funder, and in complying with grant/award agreements. We're here to help you with anything you may need regarding your awards.

OCFR will assist in shepherding a message from the president for grants above a certain range. At the end of or during the duration of a grant period, we play a role in helping with grant reports (for foundations) or impact reports (for companies). If a no-cost extension is needed for your grant, we're happy to help with communicating with the foundation or corporation on your behalf and with connecting you with SPARC. If you simply need an extension on your grant report, we're also here to aid you with the internal process of creating that extension with RCA as well as requesting the extension from the funder.

Each year, we also submit an endowment report which includes a message from the president, information on Rice's endowment from the previous fiscal year, financial information on the specific endowed fund, and information on how the funds were utilized. We compile information from chair holders, postdoctoral fellows, and scholarship recipients who have benefited from endowed funds in order to update the foundation or corporation on the activities of the recipients. The endowment report is a key stewardship step which allows us to maintain decades-old relationships with foundations and corporations who have given endowed funds to the university.