Endowments and Planned Gifts: What and Why?

Contributions to endowments — both those that create new funds and those that add to existing funds — often are attractive to planned-gift donors because they appeal to the donor’s core values, and they provide numerous benefits to the donors as well as to the institution.

Endowment contributions:

* Create a sense of immortality. Because an endowment gift will be invested permanently, it can serve as a permanent tribute to the donor and extend the donor’s values for future generations. It can offer the donor a sense of immortality, a way to define the donor’s place in the cosmic scheme of things through support of an important cause.