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We encourage you to contact us about how to structure your gift to create the impact that is meaningful to you. You can use almost any type of asset, including cash, securities, and real estate. Bequests and other deferred gifts, including those that provide life income to you or another beneficiary, can also be used to support new or existing funds. To create a new current use fund or endowment with a name you choose, the University of Washington has established minimums that must be met. Gifts of any size can support an existing current use fund or endowment.
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Yes. Pledge commitments may be fulfilled over a period of time, depending on the type of fund. If you are establishing a new endowment, the endowment will invest on the next quarterly investment date once the minimum funding requirement is met (even if the full pledge is not yet fulfilled.)
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Yes. Your directed gifts from donor-advised funds and community foundations are treated as donor gifts from the issuing institution. However, because these funds are not legally owned by the donor directing the gift, we cannot set up a multi-year pledge for donor-advised or community foundation funds.
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Although it is not necessary, many donors choose to name new current use funds or endowments to honor a family member, an influential professor or mentor; preserve the name of their family foundation; or to create a personal legacy. Creating and naming a new fund requires meeting current minimum requirements and signing a gift agreement with the University.
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Yes. The College has many existing funds supporting students, faculty, programs and research, and additional gifts toward those existing funds are always welcome. There are no minimum gift requirements to support existing funds.
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Yes. As long as your estate gift meets the donation minimum at the time the gift is received and meets the University of Washington’s Gift Acceptance Policy, you may establish a new endowment. You may also direct your estate gift towards an existing endowment.
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Though distinct in purpose, endowed funds are comingled in the UW’s Consolidated Endowment Fund (CEF) and tracked much like a mutual fund. The CEF holds a diversified mix of stocks, bonds and other assets managed primarily by professional investment firms employed by the UW. The UW’s Board of Regents, the University’s highest authority, establishes CEF investment and spending policies and monitors the fund’s management and performance.
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Distributions from the Consolidated Endowment Fund (CEF) are made on a quarterly basis to support an endowment’s purpose. Under the CEF spending policy established by the UW Board of Regents, distributions to programs are currently equal to 3.6% of the 5-year rolling average of the endowment’s market value. (Using a rolling average decreases the impact of market fluctuations.)
The University has built an online calculator that can be used to estimate endowment earnings payouts for different gift levels. For additional information about the Consolidated Endowment Fund, visit https://finance.uw.edu/treasury/CEF.
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Gifts to current use funds are available to the department immediately, while gifts to endowments take longer to process. A gift to an existing endowment will be invested in the Consolidated Endowment Fund (CEF) on the next quarterly investment date. That gift will increase the principal of the endowed fund, which will also increase the distributions disbursed by the endowment over time.
Once a new endowment is invested in the Consolidated Endowment Fund (CEF), the first two quarters’ income is used to support the University’s advancement efforts. This means that the benefiting department will begin receiving endowment disbursements at the end of the third quarter following investment. For example, if an endowment is invested in the CEF on January 1, the distributions made on March 31 and June 30 would support advancement efforts. Beginning with the September 30 disbursement, quarterly distributions would be deposited to the endowment’s operating account housed in the benefitting department. This one-time fee, more commonly known as parking, is imposed only on newly established endowments when they are initially invested to cover administrative costs. It does not apply to gifts made to existing endowments.