Endowments

What is an endowment?
An endowment at the SIUE Foundation preserves the principal while providing income for a program account specified by the donor. An endowment may be established at any level above the minimum level and may support any type of program account with the exception of a benefit account. The Foundation's Investment Policy sets the percentage of earnings that may be distributed as income to the program account from the endowment accounts. Distributions are made at least once a year. 

How much money does it take to create an endowment?
Endowments require a minimum of $15,000 to be created; however, they can be created with funds greater than that amount. It is possible to create endowments structured to reach the minimum level of $15,000 over a period of no longer than five years. 

How much money does it take to create a scholarship endowment?
An endowment to support a scholarship may be created at the minimum endowment level of $15,000, but this will only provide partial scholarship support. Currently, it takes an endowment of at least $80,000 to provide significant scholarship support. 

Once an endowment is created, how much becomes available to the related program account each year?
The annual earnings from the endowments are distributed in accordance with the endowment account's classification. The distribution formulas may be changed at the direction of the Foundation Investment Committee. Currently, the spendable earnings allocation is set at 4.5%.

If you have any questions or would like to discuss setting up an endowment, please contact Jason Coomer at (618)-650-2841 or by email at jcoomer@siue.edu.