You hear about endowments a lot in our field, usually associated with universities. But what about endowments from a fundraiser’s perspective? What are they? How do they work? What’s the point of them?
In today’s episode, that’s exactly what we’re talking about. Shout out to the listener who suggested this topic! We’re discussing how an endowment can be seen as a status symbol, what fundraising for endowments can look like, what the indicators are for when an organization should start an endowment (or if they should start one at all!), how the yearly draw works and where the funds go.
We also talk about quasi-endowments, feasibility studies, and we share a recent success story about an endowment campaign that shows how it should be done.
What’s in this episode:
- [02:01] The fundraising side of endowments: what they are, how they work, and what’s the point of them?
- [11:33] A success story about a recent endowment campaign we were involved with
- [14:39] How the yearly draw works in an endowment
- [17:14] When an organization should consider beginning an endowment campaign
- [23:11] What a quasi-endowment is and how it differs from a regular endowment
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Resources Mentioned
A big thanks to our sponsors for this episode on complicity in the nonprofit world: Brittny Wilson Consulting and Prismatic Consulting, and to Jake Walker Music for our theme song!