Endowment Thresholds
Endowment thresholds indicate the minimum gift needed to establish an endowment supporting key fundraising priorities.
Earnings from endowments provide the great majority of the philanthropic support sustaining W&L each year. When you give a gift to establish or build an endowment, your gift:
W&L has established specific funding priorities and endowment sizes so your investment in an existing or new endowment will be helpful and effective.
When you give to an endowed fund, the university invests your gift as part of its overall endowment portfolio. Each year, a portion of the value of your endowed fund is paid out to support the fund's purpose (a scholarship, a professorship, etc.) Any remaining earnings are used to build the endowment's value. In this way, an endowment fund can grow and provide support for its designated purpose in perpetuity.
Endowment thresholds indicate the minimum gift needed to establish an endowment supporting key fundraising priorities.
Washington and Lee's endowed funds ensure talented students have access to a W&L education, provide faculty with opportunities for research and academic enrichment, support university programs so that they thrive, and sustain the beauty of the historic campus.
Washington and Lee's Harte Center for Teaching and Learning will be a space that builds upon W&L's signature strengths of outstanding teaching and academic performance. Located in Leyburn Library on the first two levels, the Harte Center will offer W&L professors the training and resources that will help them to be the best possible teachers, and provide students access to experts and resources that will enhance their writing, oral communication, research, and quantitative skills and improve executive function.
Washington and Lee's mission includes preparing graduates for engaged citizenship in a global and diverse society. To accomplish this objective, students need the ability to interact with highly talented peers, faculty and staff who represent a broad range of backgrounds and perspectives. Gifts in support of the Office of Inclusion and Engagement will help fund programming, future staffing and resources such as the food pantry, textbook lending library and professional wardrobe closet.
Raising an additional $135 million in scholarship support would place W&L among a select group of prominent schools free to admit any student, without consideration of their financial situation. In turn, W&L would be poised to attract gifted students from all backgrounds who contribute significantly to the rigorous academic environment for which the university is known.
Earnings from endowments provide the great majority of the philanthropic support sustaining W&L each year. When you give a gift to establish or build an endowment, your gift: 1) Provides annual revenues that support the chosen purpose of your endowed fund; 2) Helps W&L keep tuition increases to a minimum; 3) Contributes to the financial strength that allows W&L to remain true to its mission.