How to donate your private jet to a really good cause!

Howdy!

It’s FOIAball. It’s almost Friday. Honestly, what more could you want out of life? 

I don’t love making blanket declarations, but I think everyone understands and agrees with the general precepts regarding charity. 

Society can be frustratingly unequal, and people can be in need through no fault of their own. If you’ve been blessed with a far greater share, it’s a good thing to give to those without.

But it’s not that easy. Sometimes, when you have a lot, it’s a lot harder to give. 

Don’t believe me? Let’s say you’re rich. You’re walking down a city street. And you come across someone. Hunched over in the alcove of a building, cupping their hands together. They’re asking for anything you can spare. 

You can’t just give them your private jet. First off, you don’t carry it around with you. It’s in the hangar getting detailed. And this person clearly doesn’t have their own hangar space. Are they just going to leave a Cessna parked on the street?

But you would like to help. Maybe not this person, but someone in equally dire and desperate straits.

Like a college football coach who needs to meet a recruit. Or an athletic director who would like to attend a conference. The schools they work at have only a couple billion dollars in their endowments. They’re practically paupers!

So let’s do some good and get that plane in the hands of people who really need it. 

If you’re on the fence… it’s tax-deductible. 

I know what you are thinking. Don’t most universities already own private jets? They do. But man cannot live on a Bombardier alone. 

Schools need more. Which is why they actively solicit private jet donations. 

Take the University of Nebraska. Back in March, FOIAball reported that the Cornhuskers spent $1.1 million on private jets just for members of their football staff. 

But they didn’t spend exactly that much. Half of that came from donations, part of an initiative by the school that is designed to get private jets into the hands of those who need them the most. 

It, sadly, does not feature a Sarah McLachlan tune playing over a video of Matt Rhule being wanded at TSA. But it’s essentially that. 

The school’s one-pager states it is “seeking donations to simplify air travel, maximize time, and reduce costs for Athletics travel.”

The program asks donors to give either the use of their personal jets or, in the unfortunate circumstance wherein they don’t have any jets, any potential private jet hours they may have as part of a charter or timeshare. 

Which is really scrounging in the couch for change, if you ask me.  

The donations are intended only for the school’s head coaches, but it does allow for, on occasion, an assistant to fly private. But only occasionally.

As the program notes, you can write off any donation on your taxes. Or, you can accept priority points for the donation’s monetary value. Points that’ll give you better football seats down the road.

I’m sure no one has ever taken the points and also claimed the deduction. Our tax system just does not allow for that kind of casual abuse.

There are rules to ensure these are actual donations and not just a way to write off business travel. The guidelines stipulate that donors cannot travel on flights they gift to the university. 

Unless the school says it's okay, that is. 

Other universities have regulations around the use of donor jets that make me wonder about preceding incidents. At Texas, its policy explicitly states that “no passenger may enter the cockpit or distract pilots during flight, takeoff, or landing” when using donor jets. 

At Michigan, any individual who is donating a jet is not allowed to also be flying the plane. 

But you don’t want to hear about rules. You want to know who is gifting their planes. 

Unfortunately, schools like to keep this information under wraps. Nebraska redacted a whole bunch of stuff. Texas’ policy explicitly states that donor names may be omitted from records and reports. 

But you never know what you might stumble across online.

The impetus for this piece was a document I found a couple months ago: Texas Tech’s 2020 “Air Charter Binder.” 

It’s still up online, right here, so I see no issue with mentioning who is in it. Especially because I emailed the school to see if they wanted to take it down and never heard back.

The file lists all the ways employees at the university (not professors, mind you) can book private travel. There are recommended brokers and charters the school uses. 

But below that is a section titled “Donor Jet Services.” And it lists who, at least in 2020, offered up their planes. 

Top of the list, naturally, was Cody Campbell. You need a plane, you call up Double Eagle Aviation ASAP. It’s even got his direct email. 

Next is a jet owned by Lee Lewis Construction, a Lubbock-based general contractor. That firm just so happened to get contracts for massive renovations at the school’s football stadium. Let’s call that, idk, a fun coincidence.

There’s a plane from the CEO of a local banking chain, another owned by the family trust of a real estate magnate, and last, the corporate jet for United Supermarkets. 

I know we’re all struggling to afford groceries these days, but an extra couple dollars a pound for ground beef, I think, is understandable. After all, these schools really, really need every single one of these planes.

More importantly, these poor folks could use a write-off. 

Hands via Longhua Liao/Getty; Gulfstream via Kevin Porter/Getty