ASU Foundation Endowment

An endowment is a permanent gift that is invested for the long term to provide sustainable financial support for the university. The gifted funds yield investment returns based on global market conditions and provide an annual payout, which is determined by the investment committee, to support the donor’s designated use.

Here are some fundamentals of the endowment process:

• An endowment is a gift of assets that is strategically converted by the ASU Foundation Endowment Fund into long-term investments to provide sustainable, long-term financial support.
• Each year a portion of the market value from an endowment is transferred into a spending account, making it available to the university beneficiary you designate.
• Only the earned returns on an endowment are spent; the principal remains intact, yielding benefits to the university in perpetuity.
• Endowment donors receive personalized reports on their investments each year, describing the financial performance of their gift, how their endowment enhances the foundation’s investments and how the gift continues to make a difference at ASU.

An endowment is essential to the financial stability of any university, public or private, large or small. Funding from the state may be counted on for base budget allocations, but it doesn’t allow for programs that go beyond the basics — propelling a university from good to great and earning national and international attention. State funding has also been decreasing in recent years.

You. As an endowment donor, you can designate an ASU school, college, institute, scholarship or program to benefit from your generosity. That beneficiary will spend the annual payout in a manner consistent with your intent when you establish your gift.

You have flexibility in how you establish an endowment: with an outright gift, a pledge or an advised bequest. But depending on the purpose of the endowment, ASU has established guidelines for minimum gift amounts that will ensure the annual investment payout is sufficient to support the intended programs. A general endowment can be established with a minimum gift of $50,000. Scholarships, fellowships, faculty professorships and chairs, and other program-specific endowments have higher minimum gift requirements.

In 2004, the ASU endowment was $250 million. As of FY26, it has grown to more than $2.05 billion. All you need to do to realize the value of every individual gift to the endowment is look at ASU’s remarkable growth and evolution over the past two decades. Without endowment gifts, ASU would not be what it is today. That same permanent, sustainable source of support will continue to fuel innovation, expand opportunities for students and faculty and help create the ASU of tomorrow.

Absolutely. You or others may continue to support the endowment through additional contributions.

An endowment is established through a formal gift agreement executed between the donor and the ASU Foundation. This agreement documents the donor’s spirit and intent in establishing the fund, the purpose of the endowment, administrative instructions, and specific criteria or other instructions to the ASU beneficiary. If the donor is funding the endowment with an estate gift, the donor may also sign a statement of testamentary provision.

After your gift is fully funded and the paperwork is complete, the fund enters the foundation’s routine allocation cycle. A payout is calculated after the close of each calendar year and provided at the beginning of each fiscal year, July 1, to the beneficiary you chose. If the endowment fund meets the payout threshold during the calendar year, payout begins the following July 1.

For new endowments established during a calendar year, the initial payout is approximately 3.75% of the gift value. After that, the foundation uses a constant-growth spending policy that increases the payout annually, consistent with the current-year inflation rate, subject to a cap and floor — 4.25% and 3.25% — of the 12-quarter average market value. Ensuring the payout is within the cap and floor provides a stable and predictable payout ASU beneficiaries can count on for budgeting and long-range planning.

All gifts to ASU and its affiliates, endowment and otherwise, are subject to the ASU policy that allows 95% of a gift to be restricted to a particular purpose at ASU and the remaining 5% is unrestricted for use to advance the University. Additionally, university foundations across the U.S. apportion a small percentage of an endowment gift as a fee for managing the gift and the endowment. At ASU, an annual institutional advancement fee of 1.5% of the 12-quarter average market provides discretionary support for the university and the foundation.

The ASU Foundation board of directors empowers an investment committee of 6-8 board members, assisted by advisers from ASU, the ASU Alumni Association and the financial community. The committee invests each gift to the endowment as part of a pooled fund comprising of a diversified, professionally managed portfolio. Combining individual endowments in a single, strong fund maximizes returns, increases investment opportunities and minimizes administration fees.

The investment strategy for the endowment is best explained through these key parameters:

• Achieve a real rate of return (defined as the nominal rate of return minus inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index – Urban Consumers or CPI-U) per annum for the Endowment Pool of greater than or equal to 5.5% on a rolling 20-year period.
• Achieve a rate of return for the Endowment Pool that exceeds the Fund’s Long-Term Asset Allocation Policy benchmark, currently 70% MSCI ACWI and 30% Barclays Global Aggregate Index, over a rolling 5-year period.
• An average annual real total return of 5.5% or more over the long-term implies a high average allocation to equity-like investments.
• The target asset allocation for the ASU Foundation endowment fund is highly diversified both by asset class and within asset classes. The purpose of diversification is to enhance future returns, to lower the volatility of returns of the ASU Foundation endowment fund, and to provide reasonable assurance that no single security or class or securities will have a disproportionate impact on the total fund.

For more information on the ASU Foundation Endowment, contact Chief Investment Officer Samantha Bradley at [email protected].

For more information on the ASU Foundation Endowment, contact Donor Relations at [email protected] or 480-965-2735.

You can view your personalized endowment information by logging into ASU Link, an online platform built to connect donors with ASU. Once logged in, click "View Details of My Endowments” on the ASU Link dashboard to access the Endowments page. At the bottom of the page, select “My Reports” to view your individual endowment reports and impact summaries. If you need assistance accessing your personalized endowment information, please contact ASU Foundation Donor Relations at [email protected] or 480-965-2735.

To log in to ASU Link, visit asulink.org and follow the prompts to log in or create your account.