Saint Paul and Minnesota Foundation Logo
Saint Paul and Minnesota Foundation Logo
Donor Services Ways to Give How To Open A Fund Why Choose The Foundation Support Causes You Care About Donor Impact Donor Resources
Advisor Services Guide Your Clients Partner with the Foundation Tools & Resources Professional Education Events Advisory Council Turn Your Clients' Goods into Gifts
How We Support Nonprofits Grant Opportunities Grant Resources Nonprofit Funds & Services Resources Beyond the Grant
Get to Know Us Aspiration and Purpose Staff Board of Directors Careers Address & Directions Nonprofits We Fund In the News History Events Financial Information
Our Work Inspire Generosity Advocate for Equity Invest in Community-Led Solutions
DonorView GranteeView Blog Contact Us Join Our Email List

View Our Nonprofit Toolkit

Thank you for requesting our nonprofit endowment toolkit, with tips on the entire process from considering an endowment to growing one.

Please bookmark this page so you can return to the resources. You will also be sent an email with a link back to this page.

Why an Endowment?

Introduction to Endowments

In this video, you will learn:

  1. What an endowment is and how it works
  2. Why endowments are important
  3. Internal and external considerations
  4. How the Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation can help

Endowment Readiness

You’ve researched endowments and know what they are and how they operate. The next set of videos will help you determine if your organization is ready to start an endowment and how to engage your board in advocacy and fundraising.

Is Your Organization Ready?

A number of factors contribute to endowment readiness. While an endowment can be started without all of these conditions present, the better prepared and positioned your organization is, the better and more successful your endowment will be.

Assess Your Endowment Readiness

Download the policy and documents checklist and readiness quiz to walk through the questions in the video above. If you can answer ‘yes’ to each of these questions, you are well-positioned for a successful endowment effort.

Policy and Document Checklist Readiness Quiz

How Can You Educate Your Board?

Educating Board members about endowment and planned giving has at least three major benefits:

  1. They’ll be able to better understand the work you do and thus more robustly support it.
  2. Having a better understanding of gift opportunities, they can better identify potential donors in their personal and professional networks.
  3. They may discover that one of the gift options you share with them is a good fit for their particular situation.

Learn more about the many ways to engage board members and provide resources to educate them about endowment in this video.

Gift Acceptance Policies

Gift acceptance policies govern what kind of gifts your organization will accept and under what conditions they can be accepted. This video briefly covers why gift acceptance policies are important and key items you should include within your organization’s gift acceptance policy.

Grow Your Endowment

Now that your endowment is established, how do you continue to grow it? This section of our endowment toolkit offers tips on marketing your endowment, identifying and cultivating donors, and working with donors to generate endowment gifts.

Promoting Your Endowment

In this video, Director of Gift Planning Mariah Brook shares tips for promoting your endowment, from identifying and qualifying donors to the solicitation itself. She also offers tips on using donor testimonials and multichannel marketing to share your endowment messages.

Love Our Specialized Approach to Endowments?

We’re here to help you succeed and can help in many ways. For more information about starting or growing your endowment, or for any questions related to endowment or planned giving generally, please contact Nonprofit Strategies Manager Elizabeth McCray at 651.325.4297 or Director of Gift Planning Mariah Brook at 651.325.4269.

View Our Endowment Management Services