With the creation of an endowment, you have the chance to build a strong foundation for the University of Washington, now and in the future. Depending on your passion or interest, your endowment, which provides funds in perpetuity, can be focused or wide-ranging.

About endowments

An endowment is a permanent fund of support for the purpose you specify. The principal of your gift is invested and grows over time. The endowment makes distributions on a quarterly basis to support the purpose specified.

Endowment gifts are extremely valuable in enhancing the quality of the University's teaching, research, and public service programs, since they provide a constant resource regardless of state funding. You can establish an endowment for:

• Scholarships and fellowships
  Support for promising students to develop their talents
• Professorships and chairs
  Essential to attract and retain outstanding faculty and maintain excellence in teaching and research
• Research, programs, or other purposes
  Key elements in keeping the UW at the leading edge of knowledge and discovery
• Unrestricted use
  Applied by the University president, the dean of a school or college, or department chair, wherever needs are greatest

Creating an endowment

You can immediately establish an endowment through outright gifts using almost any type of asset — cash, securities, real estate or other property that can be liquidated.

The minimum gift for a named endowment is $25,000 (see Types of Endowments, below). However, you can add gifts of any amount to existing endowments, such as the President’s Endowment Fund, an unrestricted University-wide fund.

Bequests and other deferred gifts, including those that provide life income to you or another beneficiary, can also fund endowments. UW staff with specialized gift planning knowledge can help you, or your financial or legal advisor, explore a variety of endowment funding options.

If you are thinking about creating an endowment to support a specific purpose, we encourage you (or your advisor) to work with development staff at the University to ensure that your gift will accomplish your goals over time. We can assist you in structuring your gift to provide support that is meaningful for you and has a powerful impact on the teaching, learning, and research that take place at the University.

How endowments benefit you and the University

Currently, the University distributes more than $40 million each year from permanent endowed funds. These endowments truly transform lives — those of the students who will become the leaders of tomorrow, the faculty who inspire them, the researchers who are finding solutions to our most vexing problems, and the programs and activities that enrich the mind and engage our community.

When you make a long-term investment in the University, you will:

• know that your gift will continue to provide benefits year after year, generation after generation
• become more informed about research made possible by your endowment
• have an opportunity to meet students or faculty who benefit directly from your generosity

Additionally, creating an endowment allows you the benefit of naming the fund and gives the University an opportunity to recognize your generosity in perpetuity. Through naming an endowed fund, you may express your regard for the University or honor a relative, friend, or faculty member.

Endowments enhance the University by ensuring a stable base of resources that will help sustain the UW as one of America’s premier universities for decades to come.

Endowment growth and distribution

Gifts for endowment are invested in the University’s Consolidated Endowment Fund (CEF). Much like a mutual fund, the CEF pools gift assets for investment purposes. Each named endowment retains its own purpose and account (budget) number, by which the University tracks growth in principal and distributions over time.

The CEF comprises a diversified mix of stocks, bonds, and other assets. The University employs professional investment firms, each of which manages a portion of the CEF. The University’s Board of Regents oversees CEF investment policies and regularly evaluates the investment managers’ performance.

Since the major goal of the CEF is to maintain purchasing power of individual endowments over time, the UW distributes for use only a portion of the total investment return on the CEF (income plus capital gain). Any return that exceeds the distribution is reinvested with the principal. Distributions from the endowment are based on the University’s spending policy. This policy is designed to provide a predictable revenue stream during volatile markets and to minimize the effects of inflation.

The University of Washington Endowment Report* contains more detailed information on the CEF, its investment policies, and recent returns. Each year, contributors to endowed funds receive, along with the Report, a fact sheet about the performance of the fund or funds that they personally support.

*Prepared annually by the Treasurer of the Board of Regents

Types of endowments

The University has established a variety of endowment types with distinct purposes and minimum funding levels.

General Endowment - $25,000
(unrestricted support for a department, program, school, college, or the University. Includes: research funds, lectureships, travel funds, publication services, etc.)

Undergraduate Scholarship - $50,000
(tuition, books, fees, and other educational expenses)

Graduate Fellowship - $100,000
(tuition, books, research and living expenses for graduate or professional students)

Faculty Fellowship - $100,000*
(research and other support, including lectures or publication costs)

Professorship - $250,000*
(faculty salary supplement, research support, equipment, publication costs)

Chair - $1,000,000*
(full or substantial portion of salary and related support for faculty member)

*Faculty Fellowships in Business, Medicine or Engineering require $500,000 or more.

If you would like to learn more about endowment opportunities at the University or to discuss ways to structure a gift for endowment, we invite you to call University Advancement at 206-685-1980 or call toll-free at 1-800-326-7566