Test Your Endowment Knowledge With This Aggie Study Guide

Yes, endowments are commonly used to fund scholarships through the Foundation, but the sky’s the limit when it comes to what your gift can impact. Endowments can also fund student organizations and activities, Aggie traditions, college programs, campus facilities and learning spaces, and faculty chairs and research.

When you’re ready to give, you’ll sit down with one of our world-class development officers, who specialize in aligning your gift with your passions and the university’s needs. They’ll ask about your Aggie story, values and charitable goals to craft an endowment that matches your desired impact. 

You might decide to fund an endowed scholarship for engineering students from the Rio Grande Valley or establish a gift that provides yearly support to campus Muster. You might support an animal science professor’s research through an endowed professorship or provide a donation that will make annual payments to your favorite student organization. The options are endless!

No matter where or how you give, your wishes will be fully documented through a signed gift agreement. The best part? The Foundation charges no gift fees, so you can rest assured that 100% of your donation will directly impact your chosen cause. 

While the minimum to establish an endowment is $25,000, you can pay this over the course of five years. We understand that most people don’t have $25,000 or more just lying around, so we’re committed to providing multiple pathways to fund your passion area.

In addition to making payments over time, you can pool resources with family or friends who are also interested in supporting the future of Aggieland. For example, you and a sibling could contribute money to honor an Aggie family member, or you and your classmates could establish an endowment in memory of an impactful professor.

Cash or check isn’t the only way to fund your endowment. The Foundation can put a variety of your assets to good use, such as payments from your donor-advised fund, securities, cryptocurrency and after-lifetime gifts left in your will. You can even create an endowment with real estate gifts of land or oil and gas interests. Many employers also match their employee’s charitable donations, so endowing your gift might not be as out of reach as you think.

For example, let’s say you and your two siblings want to establish a scholarship in honor of your Aggie parent. If you choose to pay over five years and your employers match each dollar given, you’d only need to pay approximately $2.28 a day—that’s less than the average price of a bag of chips!

While “invested” might sound risky, the Foundation’s team of investment professionals strategically manages your gift with oversight from our Board of Trustees according to an endowment structure designed to provide consistent support year after year. When you establish your individual endowment, the Foundation invests the funds from your gift, along with gifts from other donors, in our collective endowment. This endowment, which has a current value of $3 billion, is a highly diversified investment portfolio designed to perform well when the markets are up and to weather market downturns more effectively than the public markets. Think of the collective endowment like a farmer with different fruit orchards. The trees grow and produce fruit for harvesting, but with different growing seasons for different fruits, the farmer must carefully consider how to produce enough for market even when some fruits are out of season. Similarly, our team mitigates risk in our endowment through investments that are broadly diversified by type, strategy, asset class and geography, providing a measure of asset protection even against bad seasons, i.e., temporary market downturns. Each year, a portion of the collective endowment is “harvested” and distributed at a set annual rate to the university to benefit Aggieland as you desire. Over time, as more individual endowments are added to our collective endowment, its value will continue to grow, resulting in a larger harvest for the university.

An endowment is a gift that keeps on giving—literally. Not only will your endowment make payments for generations, but after the set annual payout is made, any remaining returns are reinvested in the collective endowment each year, adding to the impact of your initial gift through the power of compounding.

That’s what makes endowments so special. Year after year, your legacy in Aggieland will continue to increase as your endowment harnesses the power of long-term growth. While the impact of a non-endowed gift is immediate, endowing your gift creates benefits that are incremental and perpetual, far surpassing its original value in the end. Think “The Tortoise and the Hare,” but with philanthropy.