Duke University Financial Partners
a partnership between Leaders in the Financial Services Industry and Leaders at Duke
Duke supporters who are leaders in the financial services industry have come together under the Duke University Financial Partners. This group of alumni, parents, and friends understands the financial complexities of a university and is uniquely positioned to invest in Duke's financial success. Financial Partners are affiliated with every school, and their investments—as leadership donors and as active volunteers—influence every corner of the campus.
Each year, the Financial Partners meet for professionally relevant programs and opportunities to network with Duke-affiliated colleagues. Speakers and presenters have comprised a mix of industry and university leaders.
Investing in Duke's Future
During the 1996-2003 Campaign for Duke, the Financial Partners contributed over $85 million to help transform the university with new scholarships, professorships, facilities, and programs.
Many Financial Partners provide the university with both current funds and permanent support. Gifts to the Duke Annual Fund provide expendable resources to cover immediate needs. Endowment gifts are invested to provide Duke with a permanent source of funding. Each year, a portion of an endowment fund's earnings is spent. The rest remains invested to ensure that the fund will continue to grow and to weather changes in the market.
And Duke manages these investments well. For the ten-year period ending June 30, 2008, the university achieved a 15.6 percent average annual compound rate of return on its endowment assets.
Learn more about Duke's investment manager, DUMAC, LLC.
Investing in Students
Duke is committed to educating many of the world's best students, regardless of whether their families can cover the full cost of a Duke education. But financial aid endowment covers only about one fifth of the cost of Duke's commitment to need-based undergraduate aid. The balance comes from operating resources which could otherwise support academic programs. By contrast, some of Duke's peers in higher education support as much as 80 to 90 percent of their need-based undergraduate aid programs with endowment dedicated to this purpose.
The Financial Partners understand that this practice of financing so much of an increasingly expensive aid program with operating revenue may not be sustainable in all foreseeable futures. That's why they played a major role in supporting financial aid endowment during the Campaign for Duke (1996-2003) and again as part of Duke's Financial Aid Initiative (2005-08).