Case for Need

An endowment is a fund that generates support for UBC in perpetuity.

When a benefactor donates cash (or makes a donation), the goal is to invest for the long-term, generating annual distributions with equal purchasing power while preserving the principal of the investment. Some endowed gifts are designated for a specific purpose, such as student scholarships, research programmes or professorships. Other gifts are unrestricted and become part of the larger Endowment, generating funds to support a wide range of programmes and activities across the University.

Comparison Chart

In order to remain one of the leading universities in the world, the UBC Endowment must keep pace with peer universities in order to continue building excellence in faculty, research, facilities and students.

UBC is one of only two Canadian institutions that consistently ranks in the top 40 major research universities in the world. This status puts UBC in productive competition with institutions like Harvard and Stanford, private universities with endowments 20 times the size of the UBC Endowment. It is not possible to maintain a level of excellence necessary to move up the list of great universities without a significant growth in the UBC Endowment.

The Endowment creates and sustains a margin of excellence that allows UBC to introduce new programs, give scholarships and bursaries to outstanding students and support researchers whose discoveries will influence our lives. The chart to the right shows a few examples of how the UBC Endowment compares to peer public and private universities.

Endowment Allocation

The money that is generated from UBC Properties’ activities is allocated to a “discretionary” endowment. This differs from most of the money in the endowment that is pre-allocated to various uses as stipulated by the original donor.

UBC Properties' first major project, Hampton Place, generated $80 million of endowment principal and all proceeds were endowed for core academic use. Among the major beneficiaries were and continue to be:

Faculty of Arts ($6 M)
Faculty of Science ($5 M)
Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies ($15 M)
UBC's Social Science and Humanities Fund ($15 M)
Graduate Student fellowship matching ($10 M)
All faculties received additional matching

The "discretionary" endowment also resulted in a cash contribution of $20 million to the Irving K Barber Learning Centre. The new state of the art library was constructed around the refurbished core of one of the first buildings on campus, the UBC Main Library, built in 1925.

Recently, all proceeds have gone to the Trek Land Endowment and the Trek Match Endowment funds. The Trek Land Endowment currently holds $72 M in funds which generates additional proceeds to the endowment of approximately $3 M. It is anticipated that these annual proceeds will increase to $6 M by 2010. To date the annual distributions from the Trek Land Endowment include the following commitments:

Lee Graduate Business School ($5 M)
Chan Centre ($1 M)
President's Teaching & Learning Initiatives ($3 M)

The Trek Match Endowment also has $72 M in principal and is projected to increase to $130 M by 2010. The Trek Match Endowment is divided into two components:

Top up debt service capacity for capital projects such as the Irving K Barber Learning Centre and replacing infrastructure throughout campus
President's Match to help leverage fundraising

Contribution by Project

Since inception in 1988, UBC Properties Trust has been a regular contributor to UBC’s endowment. The main driver of endowment creation have been the market housing initiatives on campus.

The freehold of UBC's land will never be sold; all transactions are for long-term prepaid leases. In strict accordance with the Board of Governors' policy, net proceeds from every lease are endowed to serve the University's academic mission. To date, three neighbourhoods have been completed and two others, East Campus and Wesbrook Place, are still under active development.

UBC Properties has generated $506 million to date in both cash and value creation from the sources shown in this pie chart. Included in the total are the various residential neighbourhoods, as well as significant investment income. The "other" category includes a number of initiatives which don't necessarily include a "cash" component for the endowment yet still provide a benefit to the University. For example, the Company has constructed several rental buildings which have accumulated an appraisal surplus (defined as market value less associated debt). If those properties were to be sold or refinanced, the gain (appraisal surplus) could be contributed to the endowment. The balance of the "Other" category includes expenditures associated with infrastructure upgrades (water mains, sewers, roads, etc.).