Individual endowments represent the lasting gifts of benevolent donors who invest for long-term growth. An endowment is timeless because the long-term aim is to conserve both the corpus—the original investment—and purchasing power. The investment income and gains earned from an endowment advance the strategic vision of the donor on a continual basis.
Endowments build support that spans generations. As permanent funds, they will continue to give educational opportunities to the most talented students long into the future. They also allow OCU to recruit and retain the best professors to build programs and act as esteemed mentors to our students.
The minimum gift required to establish a named endowed scholarship is $25,000. Endowment gifts can be pledged and paid over a period of up to five years.
Minimums for additional named endowed funds are:
Professorship: $1 million
Chair: $2 million
More details and additional examples are available by contacting University Advancement at 405-208-7000 or [email protected].
Donors are encouraged to name their endowed fund in a way that is meaningful to them. Many donors establish an endowment in honor of a specific person — a family member, professor or coach — and name the fund accordingly. Endowments can also be named more broadly for the discipline they support or the group or individuals who establish them.
Yes. Unless you state otherwise in your memorandum of understanding when the gift is established, the fund can receive future gifts from you or others who choose to support the fund. While a minimum of $25,000 is required to establish a new endowment, there is no minimum gift required for increasing the size of an existing endowment.
Yes. A number of donors to Oklahoma City University choose to restrict how their funds can be used. You can designate your gift to support a particular school or program, special initiative, library, or other opportunity at the university, or establish an endowment whose income may be used at the discretion of the Board of Trustees to meet strategic needs.
OCU adheres to investment policies intended to provide a balance of risk and return in the portfolio. The investment portfolio is diversified to keep volatility within acceptable limits for the portfolio as a whole. This provides the greatest assurance that future generations benefit from the endowment as much as current students.
After the initial gift has been received, the minimum required funding level has been achieved, and all required paperwork has been completed, initial payout of funds typically will become available after 12 months. Individual gifts in excess of 50% of the market value will become available after 12 months.
The amount of payout allocated each year varies because it is based on the market value of the endowment portfolio for the previous twenty (20) quarters. The Board of Trustees reviews and approves the spending rate annually. The average spending rate for the past five years has been approximately 5% of the endowment’s average market value.
While investment returns help to fuel the growth of OCU’s endowment, the addition of gifts is important over the long term. Recurring contributions are important because this allows for averaging the cost basis over time.
