Does an Endowment Make Sense?

  1. Overall Management Review -“This type of review, usually conducted by an outside consultant or firm, develops a clear picture of [an organization’s] strengths and weaknesses. For example, you’ll probably want to analyze how effectively an organization pursues its programmatic mission, and appraise the depth of its fundraising, investment, and management expertise at the staff and board levels. Getting a professional to do this review, or someone with real experience in this kind of management, can be helpful even if you don’t end up pursuing an endowment. It can tell you what this organization needs to move to the next level — whether or not that level involves an endowment.”
  2. Feasibility Study - While the management review examines an organization’s internal readiness for an endowment, the feasibility study looks both internally and externally. On the outside, it tries to gauge the responsiveness of potential donors to an endowment campaign. (In the process, it can help grantees start to understand the fundraising challenges they will face if they go through with the idea.) Internally, it assesses whether a given financial target will yield enough to warrant the time and resources needed for raising and managing the endowment effectively.

Takeaways are critical, bite-sized resources either excerpted from our guides or written by Candid Learning for Funders using the guide's research data or themes post-publication. Attribution is given if the takeaway is a quotation.

This takeaway was derived from Providing for the Long Term.

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