TRIP Eligibility

The Texas Tech University (TTU) System Office of Institutional Advancement (IA) will review gifts and endowments above $100,000 that are received from private sources to determine eligibility. Eligible contributions may include, but are not limited to, those for faculty support, research facilities, research equipment, other research program costs, graduate research stipends or fellowships, or undergraduate research.

Gifts pledged but not yet received or gifts to support undergraduate scholarships or financial aid grants are not eligible for TRIP match.

IA must submit eligible contributions for gifts and endowments to the THECB within 30 days of receipt of funds for TRIP match consideration.

Matching Levels

IA will submit eligible gift documentation within the required time frame for TRIP match consideration to the THECB, who facilitates a peer review of match requests for all eight eligible emerging research institutions. If approved, the THECB will send confirmation to IA and TTU Accounting Services (AS) with a THECB control number and match amount.

TRIP matching grants are funded through state appropriations approved during biennial legislative sessions and published in the General Appropriations Act. The appropriated amounts fund matching grants in the order in which they were approved by the THECB. When appropriation TRIP funds are exhausted, remaining eligible gifts are queued to await future TRIP allocations. There is currently a multi-year lag between the date of the gift and when the match is received.

Use of TRIP Matching Funds

TRIP matching funds distributed must be used for research enhancing activities. Unless an exception has been approved by the Office of the President, it is the policy of TTU that 100% of TRIP match be expended consistent with the donor's intent on the original gift/endowment.

If the original current-use gift/endowment was in support of capital projects for research enhancing activities which incurred debt, TRIP funds will be applied to the debt once they are received from the state.

Due to the time lapse in a contribution being approved for TRIP matching by the THECB and actually receiving the funding from the state, it is possible the original intent of the donor as it relates to the gift for research enhancing activities may have expired. In that case, TRIP matching is expected to be used to enhance research activities in the same academic area in which the original contribution was made.

TRIP Fund Disbursement

The THECB sends TRIP matching funds to institutions at the beginning of each fiscal year. AS will confirm which gifts are being matched based on the order of the THECB control number and dollar amount allocated to TTU. Both the Assistant Vice President and Controller and Senior Vice President for Administration & Finance and Chief Financial Officer will review the gifts and corresponding match to determine if the funding should be applied to debt service.

Once disbursement is confirmed, AS will create a new fund with the same organization code as the gift/endowment and fund financial manager as the gift or endowment spendable.

• If the original contribution was a current-use gift, an 18E fund will be created for the TRIP funding. A new 18E fund will be created for each gift fund. Additional TRIP funding will be deposited into an existing 18E fund if the gift had previously received only partial TRIP matching funds in a prior fiscal year or additional contributions were made to the same gift which were also approved for TRIP matching.
• If the original contribution was for an endowment, a quasi-endowment corpus fund will be created with the TRIP matching revenues. An 18E fund will be created as the spendable fund for the quasi-endowment interest/investment earnings. Additional TRIP funding will be deposited into an existing quasi-endowment corpus fund if that fund had previously received only partial TRIP matching funds in a prior fiscal year or additional contributions were made to the same endowment which were also approved for TRIP matching.

Based on recent state appropriations and complete THECB funding data, we project our TRIP matches through fiscal year 2023 to be fully funded in 21 years (by 2045).