The average performance rates of the University of Idaho Foundation Inc. in the past three years places it in the top 5 percent of national institutional foundations, said Nancy McDaniel, executive director of the foundation.
The purpose of the foundation is to secure, manage and distribute private support to enhance growth and development at the University of Idaho, McDaniel said.
Endowments — monetary gifts invested in the stock market — given to the foundation are placed into a pool called the Consolidated Investment Trust, and money managers invest them in domestic stocks, international stocks, etc. The return on that pool in the most recent fiscal year was 20.4 percent.
When somebody makes a gift to UI it goes through the University of Idaho Foundation first, which serves as the not-for-profit arm of the university, said Chris Murray, vice president of University Advancement.
“So let’s say you wanted to give 25 dollars to scholarships for needy kids in Idaho,” Murray said. “You would send the money to (the foundation), they would take it and send it to the university and put it directly in that account.”
Murray said individual donors have the ability to decide where their money is allocated.
“You can say, ‘I want it to go to the dean of the College of Education … or to scholarships … or to a new science complex,'” Murray said. “You get to decide.”
He said the foundation places the gifts into the right “bucket” for the university.
“(The foundation) provides that
financial fuel for the university to really continue to move forward and deliver on its promise of a great university for our students,” Murray said.
A person can make a gift to the university in two ways — a donation to be put to use immediately, or an endowment that begins at $25 thousand.
Murray said endowments are gifts put into the foundation, and invested into the stock market. Instead of spending the entire donation, the foundation gives 4 percent of the gift each year.
Murray said the 4 percent is collected interest so the $25 thousand corpus — or portion that isn’t touched — can grow from inflation or rising costs.
“So what happens is, say I give a $25 thousand endowment,” Murray said. “The next year, it grows a little bit, and pretty soon it’s $50 thousand, or $75 thousand — that’s really the power of endowments. They’re very important dollars to the university as it moves itself forward.”
Murray and McDaniel call private support the “margin of excellence.”
“Those monies are added to all our other money — student tuition, (money) from the state and money we generate ourselves — and really allow us to do some of the things that we otherwise would not be able to do,” Murray said. “That could be renovating a building. That could be establishing a faculty fellowship so we could keep a great teacher.”
McDaniel said the majority of private donors are Idaho alumni, but also include corporations, foundations, parents of students, etc.
Murray said the university needs to get better at instilling a sense of giving back in its graduating students.
“As our students graduate, when they get that phone call — which they will as an alumnus — to make a $10 gift, then hopefully they’ll do so,” he said. “It’s really fulfilling that circle of philanthropy, where they’ve been bettered off — whether that’s been by a faculty member they had, a building they were in or a scholarship they received.”
Murray said it’s crucial that students give back, regardless of the dollar amount, because private dollars are essential to the unique and transformational student experience the university provides.
Providing that experience is only possible — and increasingly possible in the future — with private support, as state aid is continually dwindling, he said.
“Those private dollars are going to be so important as we move the university forward, for things like retaining great faculty, scholarship dollars to allow students to come here who otherwise may not be able to, and fixing our buildings so they can be the platforms for teaching and research that we need,” Murray said. “All those things can be bettered with private support.”