A Growing Endowment

A Growing Research Endowment to Last Forever

     We want to be in a position to pay for research today, tomorrow and forever. The lifeblood of this Institute, and the key to its success, will be the “seed money” that makes up the endowment. Using only a portion of the harvest, or income, from the seed each year will assure long-term scientific investigation. If the “seed money” itself is spent, our dream for the Institute will be short-lived.

     That’s why the Institute will limit its annual spending for the support of the Institute to, on average, 3.5 percent of the value of the endowment, which will be invested to earn more than that amount and will, therefore, grow indefinitely. Limiting spending in this way assures perpetual funding and guarantees that the Stowers Institute will always be in a position to attract top scientists, acquire the latest in technology, and regularly add new laboratories to explore new paths of research.

     The cost of providing the latest technology grows exponentially, greatly exceeding the general inflation rate, but technology also creates a limitless horizon for what we can accomplish with our research. The combination of the ever-evolving technology and the growing endowment, which allows us to bring new laboratories into operation each year, will constantly compound the potential for scientific discovery.