Establishing Endowments
What is an endowment?
Endowments are gifts held in perpetuity and invested in a manner that helps protect the principal from inflation. The investment income provides a stable funding source for scholarships, professorships, research centers, and other important initiatives. College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) has received thousands of endowment gifts over the years. Washington State University Foundation (WSUF) manages the collective funds of all endowments across the system, which has historically averaged a 7.7% rate of return with 4% distributed annually.
Because endowments are invested for the long term, these gifts provide one of the most secure sources of future revenue for WSU and CAS. Endowment gifts from alumni and friends enable CAS to offer scholarships to exceptional students, attract outstanding professors, and/or buy equipment for world-changing research-small steps in the big picture but indispensable to excellence. The value of WSUF’s endowment is approximately $700 million, with the market value for CAS at $90 million.
You can start an endowment through any outright giving method, including cash, securities, and/or personal or commercial real estate. An endowment can also be established with an estate gift.
How is an endowment invested at the WSUF?
WSUF pools individual endowment gifts into a single fund—the WSUF Endowment Fund. This allows for greater diversity in our investments, lower our investment costs, and attain maximum return on donor gifts. In addition—because a university’s overall endowment is considered a measure of long-term strength and factored into national rankings—endowment gifts contribute directly to WSU’s status as a leading university, both today and tomorrow.
College/Unit Excellence and Success
| Endowment Levels | Example Use of Funds |
|---|---|
| Endowed fund for college support starting at $15 million | Support for faculty, student success, and including scholarships; enhances research, teaching, lectures, conferences, and seminars at the highest level; provides operational support to all programs within the college. |
| Endowed fund for school support starting at $10 million | Support resources for faculty, student success, and scholarships, and enhances research, teaching, lectures, conferences, and seminars at the highest level. |
| Endowed fund for department/program support starting at $5 million | Support transforms fields of study, enabling units to reach a higher levels of excellence. Such gifts support operational costs, resources for faculty, student success, including scholarships, and enhance research, teaching, lectures, conferences, and seminars. |
| Endowed fund for center/institute support starting at $1 million | Support for challenging interdisciplinary problems or areas of scholarship. Centers and institutes connecting faculty with complementary interests that transcend disciplinary boundaries. |
| Endowed excellence fund starting at $50,000 | Support for a college/program, including but not limited to teaching, professional development, equipment, research, public service, and operations. |
Faculty/Staff Excellence and Success
| Endowment Levels | Example Use of Funds |
|---|---|
| Endowed deanship support starting at $5 million | Endowed leadership positions provides lasting discretionary support for current and future visionary leaders to support strategic direction. Enhance scholarship, teaching, research, outreach, student success, operations, and public service activities or provide transformational student experiences. |
| Endowed distinguished faculty chair starting at $3 million | Distinguished faculty chairs are highly esteemed positions and serve to recognize and incentivize excellence in academia. A distinguished faculty chair funds a faculty member to support teaching, research, and service, and may support salary. |
| Endowed faculty chair starting at $2 million | Provides a stable and perpetual funding source for the faculty chair. This funding is used for various purposes, including salary, research support, travel, or other academic activities. |
| Endowed director/department chair support starting at $1 million | Provides a stable and perpetual funding source for the faculty director/chair. This funding is used for various purposes, including salary, research support, travel, or other academic activities. |
| Endowed professorship starting at $1 million | Provides funds to a faculty member in support of their teaching, research, and service. In addition, unless expressly prohibited by the gift use agreement, a professorship may support salary. |
Student Excellence and Success
| Endowment Levels | Example Use of Funds |
|---|---|
| Endowed student success initiative starting at $500,000 | Provide sustainable financial resources to empower colleges/units to continually support student success in a way that goes beyond the limitations of traditional budgets and annual funding cycles. |
| Endowed graduate fellowship starting at $100,000 | Tuition and basic living expenses, fellowships assist graduate students in prioritizing their studies over the cost of education. |
| Endowed undergraduate scholarship starting at $50,000 | Making tuition more affordable, and make a difference in whether talented students can attend WSU and allow recipients to focus more intently on their schoolwork and extracurricular opportunities. Funding provides financial support to students. |
| Student award starting at $50,000 | Student awards enable university leadership to recognize outstanding work by undergraduate and graduate students. |