Finley, Hall & Harrison, An Examination of Board Designated Endowments in Nonprofit Organizations

Andrew Finley (Claremont McKenna College), Curtis Hall (Drexel University), and Teresa D. Harrison (Drexel University) have published No Strings Attached: An Examination of Board Designated Endowments in Nonprofit Organizations, 2024 Academy of Management Proceedings (2024). Here is the abstract:

We examine whether board-designated endowments (“BDEs”) alleviate agency problems associated with a nonprofit organization’s (“NPOs”) unrestricted net assets and whether these endowments are associated with different spending outcomes than donor-restricted endowments. Our results provide little evidence that BDEs ameliorate agency conflicts. Specifically, NPOs with a BDE exhibit the same negative (positive) relation between unrestricted net assets and program spending (CEO compensation) as comparable NPOs without a BDE. Further, the size of a BDE exhibits a stronger association with CEO compensation than the size of the donor-restricted endowment. In additional analysis, we find no evidence that having a BDE stabilizes an NPO’s program spending in the face of revenue declines, suggesting these resources fail to achieve one of the primary objectives of an endowment. Overall, our results suggest BDEs are not particularly effective in serving the mission of NPOs and raise questions as to the efficacy of boards in their oversight of this asset base.

Lloyd Mayer