Right but presumably some of the money in the existing budget for said thing can be moved around. So, say you donate $10 to Professor X's classroom and his existing budget is $50. You bumped it to $60. They can just take $10 from the existing budget and put it elsewhere. Your $10 still goes to that class, and the total goes back to $50. What you really want to know is whether the budget has increased by the amount you and others earmarked, year over year. I doubt that level of reporting is given by schools or even requested by donors. We just trust or assume that "earmarked" means the budget increased.