November 11, 2012 | Read Time: 2 minutes
The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s report on nonprofit endowments is based on data from 273 nonprofits and foundations.
The total value of the endowments in the study was $394-billion in 2011, and includes a mix of big and small groups.
For the 268 organizations that provided data for both 2010 and 2011, the median increase in endowment value from year to year was 5.9 percent.
For groups for which The Chronicle has five years of data, however, endowment totals are 15 percent below pre-recession levels, once figures are adjusted for inflation.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is the richest endowment in the survey, valued at $33.8-billion as of December 2011.
The foundation is followed by Harvard University at $32-billion and Yale University at $19.4-billion, both as of June 2011.
Wider Sample
More than 700 nonprofit organizations from across the United States were asked to provide data about their endowments.
To give a fuller picture of the state of nonprofit endowments, The Chronicle this year expanded its sample to include nonprofit endowments valued below $5-million and to increase the number of endowments valued below $100-million.
This year’s survey includes more than 100 endowments valued below $100-million—30 of which are groups with endowment values below $5-million.
Endowments valued at $1-million to $5-million were chosen from information taken from the most recent 990 filings, the informational tax form nonprofits are required to file by the Internal Revenue Service.
That information supplemented endowment returns provided by organizations on the Philanthropy 400, The Chronicle’s annual ranking of the charities that raise the most from private sources, colleges, and universities that had the 50 largest endowments, according to the National Association of College and University Business Officers and a sampling of the nation’s wealthiest grant makers.
The Chronicle’s survey was conducted by Marisa López-Rivera, with assistance from Jeffrey Bates, Peter Bolton, Brieahn J. DeMeo, Emily Gipple, and Emma Carew Grovum.
