Foundation Governance and Policy
Committee Update: ACMS Foundation Builds Structure
By Thomas Stasko, MD, FACMS
This has been an incredible year for the Mohs College and Mohs Surgery! The College celebrated its 50th anniversary at the Annual Meeting in May. During the meeting, the College announced the establishment of The ACMS Foundation. Honoring the legacy of our founder, Frederic E. Mohs, MD, the Foundation aims to support the next 50 years of growth for our specialty. The ACMS Foundation supports research grants, education and lectureships, travel awards and patient education projects.
Under the guidance of the College’s President, Barry Leshin, the ACMS Foundation Development Task Force (Drs. John Albertini, Scott Fosko, Hugh Greenway, Stan Miller and Allison Vidimos) established a launch goal of $2.5 million in the first five years. ACMS members have already committed $1.36 million, or 54% of the goal, in the first year, and our fundraising efforts continue. The first Foundation-sponsored keynote address will be presented at the 2019 Annual Meeting in Baltimore, made possible by a grateful patient gift to the Foundation for this express purpose.
The ACMS Foundation is classified as a designated fund administered by the Board of Directors of the College. This arrangement provides much greater flexibility for a fund of this size. To develop a structure for accepting donations, a spending policy and the processes for awarding and administering grants and awards, the Board appointed a Governance and Policy Committee. Its members include Drs. Tom Stasko (chair), Marc Brown, Jerry Brewer and Nat Jellinek.
One might think that raising and spending money would be very easy. As it turns out there are many considerations to being good stewards. Some of the issues the Committee is addressing include:
- Gift Acceptance Policy:
- Cash, stock transfers, IRA distributions, contributions through donor-advised funds, planned gifts and bequests will be accepted. The acceptability of other gifts such as real property will be individually evaluated to determine benefit to the College.
- Spending Policy:
- An important question for the Committee is how the Foundation will operate. Will the Foundation act as an endowed fund and spend only interest, allowing the money to last indefinitely or will it exist using a spend-down model that distributes interest plus capital over a prescribed period?
- How will the four areas of donor designation, research grants, education and lectureships, travel awards and patient education projects be incorporated into the Foundation? How can the Foundation best honor the percentage designations already made by donors?
- Should there be separate funds within the Foundation to recognize donations given in an individual’s name? An example would be donations made to honor a fellowship director. Under what circumstances would there be named lectureships or awards? Would the donors or the honoree have input as to the lecturer or the nature of award?
- Grant Application and Review Process:
- How many committees will be needed to cover research grants, education and lectureships, travel awards and patient education projects?
- How does the Foundation establish an equitable and transparent process for accepting grant requests? What is the annual timeline for grant applications, review process, finalist selection, confirmation vote and announcements?
- How will requests be reviewed? What will be the composition of the review committees?
- Who has final approval over grant decisions?
The Governance and Policy Committee is early in its work. We invite your input and comments as to how our Foundation can best serve the College and its members long into the future. This is a very exciting opportunity for us to help advance the future of our specialty. Please email your ideas to foundation@mohscollege.org.
To see a list of our ACMS Foundation Founding Donors, click here. To make a gift of your own, click here. We are grateful for your support!