Endowment Shows Strong Growth

The Board of Directors, with the help of our investment advisor, continues to closely monitor our investment portfolio. Each January the entire Board hears a detailed presentation and receives a thorough review from our investment advisor, Jeff Stark. We see how our investments are performing, and from this, determine our scholarship funding level for the next year. Our goal for our endowment is a moderately conservative, growth-oriented portfolio that seeks to achieve growth while attempting to hedge risk, and at the same time is able to fund our desired level of scholarships. We are pleased to report total investment return for 2017 was 16%.  For the first time ever, the endowment fund has grown to over $4 million. We believe this is an excellent return and a great “return on investment” for our donors. 

We strive to award the maximum amount of scholarships possible while continuing to grow our endowment to keep ahead of inflation. Our goal is an annual withdrawal of no more than 5% of the total portfolio. With interest and dividends earned, we were able to award almost $200,000 in scholarships to deserving students in 2017.  

We will continue to closely monitor our progress so that we can fund to the maximum amount of scholarships that we can, while still preserving our capital for future funding.