College of Arts and Letters Gifts of Endowment
Why Endowment Gifts?
One of the most important philanthropic activities
that a University undertakes is the building of an endowment that supports
faculty, students, instructional programs, research, and community involvement.
Universities are measured (ranked) by the size of their endowments and
the amount of the income that is available to the University from the
investment of the endowment gifts to support its mission.
Endowments have a number of important underlying assumptions
that provide the framework for the policies and procedures that govern
the management and investment of endowment assets. The first is that
endowments build long-term capacity for the institution that reduces
the dependence on raising gifts every year to support program, faculty,
and students. Second, endowments provide a separate income stream that
helps to moderate fluctuations in other revenue sources thereby helping
to dampen wide swings in available resources that damage institutional
quality. Third, endowments are forever – they extend the impact
of the gift to future generations of faculty and students and as such
need to be managed with a long-term perspective.
An endowment gift is “the gift that keeps on giving”
– it also provides a best opportunity for a donor to make a statement
about what they care about in perpetuity.
How Endowments are Invested
All endowment gifts are placed in the Campanile Foundation
Pooled Endowment Fund for investment and oversight purposes. The primary
objective in the investment of endowment assets is to preserve the long-term
purchasing power of both the principal and the income in order to provide
intergenerational equity to both students and faculty.
The Board of Directors seeks prudent investment returns
through a diversified, professionally managed investment portfolio consistent
with its approved Investment Policy Statement. To achieve its investment
objective, the Campanile Foundation retains an independent investment
consultant to provide ongoing evaluation of economic conditions, quarterly
manager performance reviews, and to provide investment manager selection
advice. Investment managers are selected to pursue a specific portfolio
management strategy. These firms are selected based on a number of factors,
including the asset class in which they have expertise, the investment
style they utilize, and historical performance. The Board sets the overall
asset allocation targets and ranges through the Investment Policy Statement
and the Finance & Investment Committee manages the portfolio within
those parameters.
Overall investment performance and specific manager
evaluations and reviews take place on a quarterly basis. The evaluation
benchmarks used for each manager are against the accepted benchmark
for the asset class they have been given an allocation for, as well
as their performance within their peer group. Currently, the investment
portfolio utilizes the services of ten different investment managers
across eight different asset classes.
