GIVING: Ways to Give What is an Endowment Fund?	GIVING What is an Endowment Fund? Stated quite simply, an endowment fund is a way to ensure that your gift provides revenue for your desired charitable purpose forever. The concept is as ingenious as it is simple. A gift to an endowment fund is never spent. Instead, it is invested; each year a portion of the earnings is made available to be spent for charitable purposes through grants. The remaining portion of the earnings is returned to the fund to increase the fund’s value and provide for future spending. Over time, the amount of money available for grants will far exceed the value of the donor’s original gift. And because the gifts into the fund are never spent, the fund will provide support for the charitable cause forever. How Does an Endowment Fund Work? When a donor starts a fund, it is invested to grow in value. Every year some of its growth is used to provide charitable grants, a small portion is used for management costs and the rest is retained as a hedge against inflation. The resulting endowment grows over time. Total grants from funds started 13 years ago, for example, already exceed the fund's original size. Their market values, meanwhile, have doubled.
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