Tips when starting an endowment

Are endowment funds on your mind?  Consider the following tip, which comes straight from Endowment Builders’ seminar, “Endowments: Everything You Wanted to Know and More.” Before jumping into an endowment fund program, take time for the important first step of self evaluation. It can provide your organization with the strong foundational assessment and direction needed for success in your endowment’s development, marketing and fundraising programs.

As an organization, answer these questions:

• What are the legal form, policies and procedures for the endowment fund that best suit our organization?
• What is the Board’s role in oversight, governance, financial management and fundraising for our endowment fund?
• What type of marketing and fundraising effort will we use to seek gifts for the endowment fund?
• Who is the potential audience within our organization’s family who is most likely to give to this effort?

Rate your organization on the following assets for endowment building success:

• Our Board is interested and committed to building endowment.
• We have a potential spokesperson who is passionate about sustaining our organization.
• Our organization has been in existence for at least 8 to 10 years.
• We’ve established a reason — history of program excellence, growth, staff stability or other — to believe our organization will be around for an extended length of time.
• We’ve created a strategic plan or, at a minimum, a five year organizational plan.
• We have financial staff who can (or is willing to learn how to) manage our endowment fund and provide oversight for the funds.
• A pool of renewable or repeat donors is readily available to our organization.
• Our fundraising program includes efforts focused on individual cultivation and solicitation; it is not just dependent on grants and/or special event efforts.

So what’s the next step? It’s time to assess, strategize, and design a successful endowment effort for your organization. For expert support through this important process or to learn about our available seminars and consulting services, contact Endowment Builders (314) 707-7033 or Dianne@endowmentbuilders.net.

The gift of time? Go to the youth…
37% of non-profits saw a leap in volunteerism this past year, according to The Corporation for National and Community Service’s (CNCS) Volunteering in America report. Perhaps most interesting is which group most ambitiously upped the ante. Nearly a million more people contributed their time, and teens and young adults 16 to 24 years of age account for nearly half of that increase. In contrast to lagging financial contributions, volunteerism is growing. Utilize the energy and potential of youth within your organization!

So who else is volunteering?
Stats from the Bureau of Labor Statistics “Volunteering in the United States, 2008” report:

• Volunteers of both sexes spent a median of 52 hours on volunteer activities during the period from September 2007 to September 2008.
• Persons age 35 to 44 continue to be the most likely to volunteer (31.3%).
• Married persons volunteered at a higher rate (31.6%) than those who had never married (20.4%) and those with other marital statuses (20.9%).
• Individuals with higher levels of educational attainment volunteered at higher rates than did those with less education. Among persons age 25 and over, 42.2% of college graduates volunteered.
• About 43.7% of volunteers became involved with their main organization after being asked to volunteer, most often by someone in the organization.

This data on volunteering was collected through a supplement to the September 2008 Current Population Survey (CPS). The supplement was sponsored by the CNCS.

For expert support through this important process or to learn about our available seminars and consulting services, contact Endowment Builders (314) 707-7033 or Dianne@endowmentbuilders.net