A gift to the endowment is never spent. It is invested and held, and its income forms priests both now and in perpetuity!
An endowment is permanent by design. The principal of your gift stays intact; only the income it earns is used. A gift to the annual fund helps form the men who are in the chapel this morning. A gift to the endowment helps form the men who will arrive in 2040, and in 2060, and long after everyone reading this page has gone home to God.
It costs nearly $9 million a year to form priests at St. Vincent de Paul. Tuition, room, and board from the sending dioceses cover around 1/2 of that. Income from the endowment distributions covers around $1.4 million presently, leaving a direct fundraising need of more than $1.6 million for the 2026-2027 academic year.
So the endowment already carries roughly one dollar of every six it takes to run this house. Every gift to principal raises that share permanently, and lightens the load of what has to be raised again next year, and the year after that. Giving to the endowment also helps the seminary keep costs low for the sending dioceses.
The Board of Trustees has set a goal of a $50 million endowment by 2030, and $75 million by 2038, the seminary's seventy-fifth anniversary. Reaching it would mean a seminary whose future is secure and whose foundation is laid for the growing vocations we see each year entering our doors.
The endowment is a separate legal entity from the seminary, with its own name and its own federal tax identification number. A gift intended for the endowment should be directed to the Regional Seminary of St. Vincent de Paul Endowment Trust, so that your acknowledgment letter comes from the endowment itself and your deduction is properly substantiated. A short call before you give is the surest way to get this right the first time.
Cash, check, or securities, given now and directed to the endowment. Tell us in advance that the gift is intended for the endowment so it is recorded and acknowledged correctly.
Most significant endowment gifts are made over three to five years rather than all at once. Named funds are very often built this way, a portion at a time.
Naming the endowment in your will or living trust costs nothing during your lifetime and can be the largest gift a person ever makes. See Planned and Legacy Giving for the language your attorney will want.
Give these details to your attorney, your financial advisor, or your donor advised fund administrator when directing a gift to the endowment.
The endowment's tax identification number differs from the seminary's. If a gift is meant for principal, please use the endowment's name and number above rather than the seminary's.
If you transfer securities into the seminary's brokerage account and the seminary later moves those funds to the endowment, your gift is legally complete the moment the shares reach the seminary's account. Your acknowledgment comes from the seminary. Only a transfer made directly into the endowment's own brokerage account is acknowledged by the endowment. Call before you transfer and we will tell you which applies to your gift.
An endowed fund can be named for you, for your family, or in memory of a priest who shaped your life. An endowed chair supports a teaching position in perpetuity. Both are conversations rather than transactions, and the Development Office is glad to begin one whenever you are ready.
Endowment gifts may be unrestricted, supporting the formation of every man in the house, or directed toward a purpose that matters to you, such as faculty, scholarship aid, or a particular stage of formation. We will walk through the options with you.
Nothing here is tax or legal advice. Your attorney or tax advisor can confirm how an endowment gift applies to your circumstances, and we are happy to speak with them directly.
More than seven hundred priests have been formed here since 1963. More than one hundred thirty men are in formation today, sent from thirteen dioceses across the Southeast. An endowment gift ensures that this mission never stops.
May God bless you! Contact the Development Office
