155 MTSU ENDOWMENT’S ‘REMARKABLE GROWTH’ REFLECTS SMART MANAGEMENT, INCREASED SUPPORT

MTSU ENDOWMENT’S ‘REMARKABLE GROWTH’ REFLECTS SMART MANAGEMENT, INCREASED SUPPORT

Oct. 24, 2007
CONTACT: Tom Tozer, 615-898-2919
Joe Bales, 615-898-5818

MURFREESBORO—The MTSU endowment ranks right up there with the endowment at Harvard University. Well, in one aspect anyway—overall performance. While Harvard’s endowment is in the billions ($34.9 billion) and MTSU’s is in the millions ($34.9 million), both funds enjoyed a similar proportional increase during the past fiscal year.
MTSU’s jump from $29.8 million to its current figure is the result of a lot of hard work, smart asset management, and, as Joe Bales, vice president of development and university relations confirms, signifies that the MTSU Foundation is in excellent shape.
“The Foundation really has had remarkable growth over the last two years,” Bales noted. “For 2005-2006, we had asset value appreciation of more than 13 percent. Add to that the gifts we received that year, and the total growth of our endowment put us in the top 25 percent of colleges and universities in the nation.”
Bales added that this accomplishment occurred during a period when there was a significant decrease nationwide in the percentage of alumni who contributed to their alma mater, especially among public universities.
“We went the other way,” Bales said. “We’ve had a slow but steady increase. Even though we leveled off some last year, over the past few years we have seen an increase in alumni participation and an increase in total donors. I believe that’s a sign that people are confident in what’s going on at this university—and it’s worth a personal investment.”
While MTSU alumni giving is up, Bales also attributes the foundation’s impressive report card to knowledgeable people who serve on the board.
“The foundation board and its finance committee, as well as the professional fund manager whom we utilize, all work together well and try to maximize what this endowment can bring to this university,” he explained. “The other factor is that a couple of years ago the board changed strategically the way it managed the endowment. They looked at ways to stabilize the way we provided funds to the academic units and to balance the need for pay-out with the need to grow the endowment.”
More than a $1 million a year is now pumped into academic units in earnings from the endowment, which appear in the form of scholarships, faculty awards and student-support programs. Bales says the way MTSU manages its endowment and directs its fund-raising programs mirrors the practices of the best colleges and universities in the nation.
“To cultivate more donors, we have placed development officers in all of the colleges in order to create a better link between our alumni and friends and their particular areas of interest,” Bales said. “When people donate, they can see exactly how that money will be used—they can see the results and understand the impact.”
For years, the understanding was that a public university received most of its support from the state, some support from tuition, and morsels from contracts from grants. That reality has changed over the last 30 years, Bales noted, with decreasing state support, higher tuition and a slight increase in contracts and grants.
“The fourth pillar that has really had to come into play is private philanthropy,” he said. “A lot of people don’t view the public university as a philanthropy. We’ve had to inform and educate our alumni on why we need to ask for money and how their giving can significantly impact an area that is important to them. If someone calls and says he or she would like to give to the university, my first question is, What are you interested in? When people can see their money doing something that is important to them, they feel better about it.”
Bales emphasizes that gifts both large and small fuel the vitality of private support.
“While we welcome and certainly appreciate large gifts, we know that small gifts can meld together and accomplish just as much as a major gift,” he said. “We have a member of our staff who utilizes students to call annual donors because we want those donors to have personal contact from the university. We want people to understand that their dollars make a difference. If we can make people feel proud of their gift, then we have done our job.”

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