I do not know of an institution that has a responsible development office
that does not battle this problem.  I have a strong development program
on our campus and they are constantly taking credit for things they did
very little for.  A couple of notes of interest and then I will share a
relationship that we have established here.

Jane Youngers raises the question about tax law.  Good point.  The IRS
treats clincial trials completely different.  If you development
foundation is taking these and treating them as donations, you have some
serious problems.  Clincial trial revenue is viewed as unrelated taxable
income and can be treated as a fully taxable (at corporate rate) income
if not accounted for correctly.  If a definable product is contingent
upon the gift (i.e. intellectual property rights, data ownership, control
of publication through any kind of review, a final report that is based
upon predetermined goals) then you have now accepted work for hire and
violated the premise of most development foundation legal structures.
Consequently, you have given a unique benefit to a for-profit entity
through the use of not for profit facilities.  This could endanger your
status of taxation (and not just income tax,  most of us have bigger
property tax exemptions than income exemptions).

If you are having a big problem with your development foundation.  You
might get with your institution legal and accounting firms and pose these
issues to them.  If the development foundation has accepted some
"significant" dollars, the lawyers and accountants will become your
strongest supporters.

I worked with our development foundation to set up a review of any
request for research support that would come to them.  The dollars might
still be received by them, but we learn about the fund raising effort
ahead of time and then administer all of the contractual requirements
after the dollars come in.  I pointed to their acceptace of one "deal" as
requiring them to report on patient studies.  I asked them who was doing
this.  When I got the expected no one, I informed them they were now
defaulting on the contract and exposing our institution to a breach of
contract lawsuit that could have two commas in the settlement.  Since
they signed the contract, the settlement would have to come out of their
budget if a lawsuit occurred.  Some much for raises and bonuses.  It
worked for me, maybe for you.

Lynn Gibson
Baylor Research Institute
Dallas, Texas
(214) 820-2687
xxxxxx@tins.technology.org