FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Your gift may not appear immediately in your account due to the our gift processing system. Cal Athletics processes a large volume of gifts every day and while we do our best to process gifts immediately, it takes us up to a few weeks to record gifts in our donors’ accounts.

If you made an online gift to Cal Athletics through give.berkeley.edu, you should expect to receive an e-mail from the Berkeley Online Giving office with your gift receipt within a few hours of making your gift. Thank you for your support of our student-athletes. If considerable time has passed and you have not received a gift receipt or acknowledgement, please call the Cal Athletics Fund at (510) 642-2427.

Every sport-specific annual fund pays for academic service related expenses in addition to other athletic program daily costs. If you would like to give specifically to an academic and professional support designated fund, please call the Cal Athletics Fund at (510) 642-2427 and request your gift be allocated to the Academic Enhancement Fund. The Academic Enhancement Fund supports all of our 30 athletic programs at the discretion of the Director of Athletics. You can also give to the Athletic Study Center (for all student-athletes) and/or to The Football Academic Enhancement Fund (a fund established in 2015 for football student-athletes).

Any gift or endowment made to the Cal Athletics Fund or to sport annual funds can provide you with associated benefits (so long as you accept benefits when making your gift). Charitable funds do not contribute towards benefits and priority points. If you are unsure whether your gift provides you with your desired benefits, please contact us at CalAthleticsFund@berkeley.edu or call 510.642.2427.

No. Gifts through charitable funds cannot contribute towards benefits associated with any purchase of season tickets or single game tickets because gifts through a charitable fund are made contingent on the fact that the donor will not receive any benefits normally associated with a gift of that amount. Please note that Cal Athletics must uphold charitable fund regulations. Cal Athletics is legally obliged to sign a document for every check that our department receives indicating that no gift through a charitable fund will provide benefits to the donor. Many charitable funds believe that the ability to buy a certain seat based on gifts made to Cal Athletics indirectly provides the donor with benefits, thus no longer rendering a gift made through a charitable fund 100% tax deductible.

A portion of your philanthropic gift, 5 percent, is allocated to support our fundraising efforts. This level compares favorably to those at other UC schools and select institutions. One half of this amount is directed to fundraising operations at the school, college or program benefiting from your gift, and the other half to further investments in development campuswide. Fundraising efforts at UC Berkeley have generated about $7 for each dollar spent over the past five years. Your support enables us to renew the university’s public mission and world-class excellence for generations to come.

Any gift to the Cal Athletics Fund, scholarship funds or sport-specific annual funds directly contribute towards the daily expenses, travel costs, uniform and gear expenses and the academic services necessary for our student-athletes to excel in the classroom, in competition and in life.

The tax code changes passed by Congress has an impact on your philanthropic gifts. This includes the provision in Section 170(I) of the Internal Revenue Code that previously allowed for donations related to priority ticket access for collegiate athletic stadium events to be tax deductible for 80% of the total gift amount. As per the tax code changes, a contribution that involves the right to purchase tickets for seating at our athletic events is not deductible for federal income tax purposes. If you have questions or concerns, the Cal Athletics Fund team would be happy to assist you. We can be reached by calling (510) 642-2427 or by emailing calathleticsfund@berkeley.edu.

Yes. Gifts to Cal Athletics are considered philanthropic contributions in support of Cal’s 850 student-athletes; however, a contribution that involves the right to purchase tickets for seating at our athletic events is not deductible for federal income tax purposes.

Please review the information on the How to Make a Gift page of our website.

Yes. Gifts can be made through the UC Berkeley Foundation. Please visit our giving securities website for more information.

Yes. Hundreds of companies currently match their employees’ gifts to UC Berkeley. Be sure to consult your company’s policy for matching gifts in order to determine whether you will receive full benefits and priority point credit for the company’s portion. To find out if your company will match your gift to Cal Athletics, please consult our employer matching gift search on our Employer Matching Gifts website.

Yes. Gifts can be scheduled on a monthly, quarterly and annual basis. Visit give.berkeley.edu/athletics to select the fund for your gift, then select the “Recurring” option.

A pledge is an ongoing, annual commitment that is usually paid off within four of five years. A straight pledge on the other hand, is typically a one-time commitment recorded in anticipation of a donation. Recurring gifts resemble pledges in that they are ongoing donations; still, recurring gifts are different from pledges in that there is no monetary commitment attached to recurring gifts. Instead, a donor can choose when to begin and end his or her recurring giving.

Yes! If you are a UC Berkeley employee, you may contribute on a monthly basis to almost any area of the University via payroll deduction. Payroll deduction is an easy way for University employees to contribute on a monthly basis to almost any area of the University. Once an employee enrolls to make a gift via payroll deduction, funds are automatically deducted from the monthly paycheck and credited into the receiving account. Enrollment Process: Complete and submit an authorization form online. For security reasons you will need to login with your Calnet ID. Once the form is submitted, you will receive an email message requesting you to validate the gift details before it is submitted to Gift Services and the Payroll Office. Information received in payroll by the 10th of the month, expect your deduction to begin the following month. If received after the 10th of the month, deduction will be taken within 60 days. Steps to cancel or modify deduction: Send an email to gifthelp@berkeley.edu with "request to cancel/modify deduction" in the subject line, and include your employee ID in the Message body. Gift Services will contact you if they encounter problems processing your request or they require any further clarification. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Gift Services at 510.643.9789 or by e-mail at gifthelp@berkeley.edu.

Sometimes. Cal Athletics accepts Gifts-in-Kind only in cases where the gift offsets a necessary operating expense. Gifts-in-kind must be approved by the Cal Athletics Fund before being accepted. E-Mail the Cal Athletics Fund at CalAthleticsFund@berkeley.edu to discuss your gift-in-kind.

When making a gift, please use the UC Berkeley Foundation tax ID (946090626) and note the fund name (or fund number, if you have it) with the gift submission.

Priority Points are the system Cal Athletics uses to equitably assign donor and season ticket benefits. While your annual giving level determines the benefits received (click here for the current benefit chart), priority points are used to rank patrons receiving those benefits and to determine items such as season-ticket locations, parking lot locations, and single-game or postseason ticket locations. Please note that gifts to endowments or gifts for which you have not accepted benefits DO NOT contribute to your priority point total.

For more information, please contact us at CalAthleticsFund@berkeley.edu or call 510.642.2427

Yes. Donors may request that no goods or benefits be received in exchange for donations, ensuring a gift remains 100% tax-deductible. Declining benefits includes declining season-ticket privileges and benefits.

Any gifts given towards per seat donations (starting 1/1/18) will not be tax-deductible and can only be directed to the Cal Athletics Fund (not sport specific funds).

If you have any ticket purchase and account questions, schedule, parking and game-day questions, please call the Athletic Ticket Office Sales & Service team at 1 800 GO BEARS Ext. 3.

Priority points are the system Cal Athletics uses to equitably assign donor and season-ticket benefits. While the annual giving level determines the benefits received (click here for the current benefit chart), priority points are used to rank patrons receiving those benefits and determine items such as season-ticket locations, parking lot locations, and single-game or post-season ticket locations.

Donors at the Cal Club ($100) will receive 5 points per year for each consecutive year of giving. Points awarded for donations do not calculate decimal points. A full $100 or $200 of giving must be reached before a full point is awarded.

Your priority point total is available through your online ticket account. Log in to your online ticket account using your account number or email address and password, select the “My Account” section, and then click the “View My Priority Points” link. Points can also be accessed by visiting CalBears.com/ViewMyPoints.

By not making an annual donation or purchasing season tickets for a given sport, only those portions relating to consecutive years of donations or season tickets are lost. Points for lifetime donations, alumni, letterwinner status and volunteer activities are never lost.

It is important to know that season-ticket and donor accounts are created as an individual, and individual and spouse, or a business entity. Accounts may not be created for two or more individuals (i.e. siblings, neighbors, friends, parents, children, etc). to share. Therefore, priority points are awarded to the person whose name is on the donor/season-ticket account. For two individuals to earn points, both individuals must maintain separate accounts.

No, priority points are non-transferable. Priority points are intended to represent an individual’s donation and ticket history with Cal Athletics. Transferring points to a new individual would unfairly elevate the new individual ahead of other long standing donors. If you know somebody who may want access to priority points in the future, the best course of action is for that person to begin his or her own donation and ticket history as soon as possible.