The 2020 endowment results are in. VU's endowment remained fairly steady at $254M, down from 259M in 2019. That is a decrease of -1.87%. We rank #282 out of over 700 schools. The year before we were #278.
A brief glance at the list shows that half of all schools - maybe a bit more than half - reported endowment losses. Drake, which ranks #307, dropped to about $220M from $226M. Butler, which ranks #315, dropped to $212M from $215M.
We still have work to do. Wheaton and St. Olaf, which might be considered two of our peer institutions, are both over $500M. Bradley, which is for sure a school that competes with us for the same students, is at $324M.
Paul
Thanks for posting this - I hadn't seen the report yet.
One thing to note is that the report is based on the fiscal year, which runs July 1 - June 30. So, the report is comparing endowment results as of June 30, 2020. Some of the YoY drop is due to the remarkable declines in the stock market due to COVID-19, much of which happened in February and March of 2020 and did not fully recover by the end of June. Since that time, the market is up by about 20%. (Of course, the endowment is not fully invested in the stock market, and there are additional variance due to endowment spending and endowment contributions.)
Quote from: valpo95 on February 25, 2021, 11:36:15 AM
Thanks for posting this - I hadn't seen the report yet.
One thing to note is that the report is based on the fiscal year, which runs July 1 - June 30. So, the report is comparing endowment results as of June 30, 2020. Some of the YoY drop is due to the remarkable declines in the stock market due to COVID-19, much of which happened in February and March of 2020 and did not fully recover by the end of June. Since that time, the market is up by about 20%. (Of course, the endowment is not fully invested in the stock market, and there are additional variance due to endowment spending and endowment contributions.)
Also, the Forever Valpo drive was at about 205 million at the end of June. Obviously, much of that was in the form of commitments rather than actual cash but still, by the end of the Calendar year it was nearing 260 million.
You don't hear much about how much of Forever was cash vs. pledged vs. deferred money from estates do you? Hopeful a lot of it is cash coming in a year or two, but not clear. Just hope for the best I guess.
Yeah I think outside of if the press release at the time talks about it as immediate you can assume it's pledged in the future. The other thing that makes it hard is over a 10 year plan things that started as pledged can become actual funds. I know of at least one donation that was in an estate when first announced but is now in effect. Some people may be doing their estate planning as a matter of course and others may be doing it because they are ill.
Good points. It is a long term game ten year game as you say with a lot of ups and downs in giving and market value. The critical question is the short-term question is the short term 2-5 year strategy to increase cash income that is more predictable for budgeting.