Talk:Financial endowment

Move to Wiktionary

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Not moved. Sargdub (talk) 03:36, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

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from VfD: No more than a dictionary definition—Trevor Caira 14:53, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

If suitable, move to Wiktionary. --Wikimol 16:54, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

• Keep. There is a certainly an encyclopedia article to be written here about the role that endowments play in our public institutions and financial markets. Tomato 23:30, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• Keep. Agree with Tomato. --Key45 00:37, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• Keep, too. Samaritan 02:46, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Copyvio as it stands (lifted right from its source)—Trevor Caira 03:00, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

• Delete, moving to wiktionary if they want it. Yes, there's an article to be written about them. This is not a useful beginning to one however, and should someone need this they can find it on wiktionary or in a random dictionary. --fvw* 03:20, 2004 Dec 22 (UTC)
• Keep. Can be expanded. -[[User:Ld|Ld | talk]] 05:36, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• Keep stub as prod to writing a real article. Claim of possible copyvio seems silly: it's almost impossible to have a single-sentence definition not fall under fair use. -- Jmabel | Talk 09:27, Dec 22, 2004 (UTC)
• Obvious keep. Dan100 09:49, Dec 22, 2004 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Still a stub?

Is this article still considered a stub? Is the VfD discussion still needed in the talk pages? --Techieman 04:48, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Endowed Professorships references

I added material that I would like to footnote, but since this is my first ever entry, I am not understanding how to do it. The reference to Lady Margaret is referenced here: http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/news/dp/2004110501 The reference to the Lucasian Chair is referenced here: http://lucasianchair.org/lucasianchair.org/brief.html There is information about the first endowed chair in America (Harvard) that I did not include but may be appropriate here: http://www.hds.harvard.edu/history.html

I am hoping that others will contribute additional information on Endowed Chairs if they have it.

One final question, can a link be created so if someone types in the search box "endowed chairs" or "endowed professorships" it takes them right to this space?

Thanks --Gusnite 19:40, 1 December 2006 (UTC)Gusnite

Nice finds on the information for the first endowments! I have added the references to the article. This is where you learn how to add footnotes. Endowed chair now redirects to Financial endowment. Techieman 06:09, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

In References, the link to "So Nicely Endowed" needs to be updated to http://www.newsweek.com/id/54660 instead of http://www.newsweek.com/id/39272. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.215.94.172 (talk) 02:31, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

How does it appear in Financial Statements?

How is endowment described in financial statements?Tom Cod (talk) 21:47, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

College and university endowments in the United States

The Financial endowment article and College and university endowments in the United States article are almost identical. Is there a need for both? Thanks, Alanraywiki (talk) 22:46, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Very Stubby

More needs to be said about how a financial endowment works on interest earnings rather than consuming the principal. Gautam ^Discuss 17:02, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Legal structure

Note: Need section about legal structure. (Article is not clear. Is an endowment its own entity type under the law or it is simply a Trust that is designated to endow?) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72Dino (talk • contribs) 17:57, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Contradiction

The Quasi-endowments section contradicts itself as to whether one can be restricted. --Stfg (talk) 09:43, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Needs clarification

The article doesn't really say whether endowment is the TOTAL amount accumulated by and available to an institution or the size of donations they get every year. I believe it's the most important aspect of this article. My assumption is that it's the cumulative amount - it's difficult to imagine Harvard University gets 30 billion dollars every year. Is that correct? Could someone please clarify this?

I also believe the definition in the first sentence is wrong. A financial endowment is a NOT transfer of money and/or property donated to an institution. It is that money and/or property already donated and in possession of the institution. BadaBoom (talk) 00:24, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Not all types of endowment preserve the principal in perpetuity

Under the "Types" heading, 3 types of endowments are described. Then later in that same section, it says:

"All endowments ensure that the original principal, inflation-adjusted, is held in perpetuity and prudent spending methods should be applied in order to avoid the erosion of corpus over reasonable time frames."

I believe "all" is incorrect -- it is contradicted by the description of the 2nd and 3rd types of endowment, and by the paragraph following the above. I believe the "All" should apply only to the first type, the "True endowment (also called permanent endowment)."

Rhkramer (talk) 20:15, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

Maintenance review — January 2026

I have added the {{Multiple issues}} banner and several section-level tags to address the following:

Article-level

• {{Globalize}} — Coverage is heavily weighted toward the United States (UPMIFA, US universities, US private foundations); UK mentioned briefly, but other jurisdictions are absent.
• {{Update}} — Endowment valuations cite 2021–2022 data; Ford Foundation figures are from 2014.

Section-level updates

• Endowed faculty fellowships and Endowed scholarships and fellowships: Added {{Unreferenced section}} as these subsections currently contain zero citations.
• Economic downturn: Added {{Update section}}—all examples focus on the 2008–2009 financial crisis; no coverage of subsequent market events (e.g., 2020 pandemic, 2022 corrections).

I also noted existing inline tags:

• {{Cn}} in Fiduciary management (October 2025)
• {{When}} in Kansas example (May 2019)

Happy to help address these or provide sources if anyone else is working on this.

Sparks19923 (talk) 01:45, 27 January 2026 (UTC)