Greetings from the IU Foundation
Fiscal year 2025 highlights
In support of our mission to maximize private support for IU, the IU Foundation business model includes five key steps: Engage alumni and friends, Raise funds, Receive funds, Invest funds, and Utilize funds. The following data represent totals from July 1, 2024, through June 30, 2025.
Engage alumni and friends
The IU Foundation builds and stewards lifelong relationships with current and potential supporters through a wide variety of outreach opportunities.
Snapshot of engagement activities
- Emails, care calls, letters, videos, newsletters, reports, and online features to communicate gratitude to donors and share impact stories
- Groundbreaking giving circles—such as Women’s Philanthropy at IU, the Black Philanthropy Circle, and the Queer Philanthropy Circle—which unite supporters with shared passions to enrich the IU experience and ensure that IU is a place for all students to thrive
- Hoosier Family Fellows, an effort to engage IU parents in the life and mission of the university
- IU Student Foundation, a student organization that shapes the philanthropic leaders of tomorrow, and the IUPUI Student Foundation’s Jagathon, a student-led event that raises money for Riley Children’s Hospital
- Recognition societies, which honor generous donors for their commitment to and support of IU
Through these initiatives and more, we inspire current and potential supporters to connect their personal and philanthropic values with the mission of IU.
Raise funds
Private support for IU comes from all over the world and includes giving from individuals as well as corporations, foundations, and other organizations. During fiscal year 2025, donors gave more than $544 million to IU. This total includes cash gifts, future pledge payments, and revocable and irrevocable planned gifts.
Giving snapshot
Giving by location
In fiscal year 2025, most gifts to IU were made by Indiana residents, but donors from all 50 states and dozens of countries around the world also gave significant support. This strong global showing is further indication that our mission resonates with donors no matter where they reside.
Sources of giving
The variety of giving sources illustrates the broad appeal of IU as a place for philanthropic investment. From individuals to corporations, donors of all kinds recognized IU as a place to effect change in fiscal year 2025.
New endowments
Endowed gifts leave legacies that bolster IU’s mission in perpetuity. By funding research, scholarships, graduate fellowships, faculty chairs, professorships, and other academic programs, endowments preserve IU’s commitment to providing a world-class education for generations to come.
Planned giving by the numbers
Many donors support the causes that mean the most to them with a gift through their will or trust, or other type of future arrangement. These gifts, known as planned gifts, are usually, though not always, fulfilled after death. Although most planned gifts come from wills or living trusts, other options include life insurance, retirement assets, real estate, and securities. Planned gifts can provide a lasting legacy for IU while yielding certain financial and federal tax advantages for donors. The following statistics are the planned giving results from fiscal year 2025.
Since our founding in 1820, generous individuals and organizations have partnered with IU, fostering a legacy of academic innovation, groundbreaking research, and transformative opportunities for students. Every gift makes a difference in fulfilling our mission to provide a world-class education and enrich lives in Indiana and beyond.
Pamela WhittenIU President
Receive funds
Donors can choose to support IU in a number of ways beyond cash gifts. From planned gifts and pledges to real estate, securities, and more, donors select gift vehicles that suit their specific needs and goals.
Gifts received by type
Demonstrating our donors’ strong commitment to IU and long-term philanthropic goals, planned gifts and pledges accounted for more than 49% of total gifts received.
Invest funds
By taking a disciplined, consistent, and diversified approach to investing funds, the IU Foundation generates steady, long-term funding for the university’s people, places, and programs.
Endowment performance over time
The IU Foundation has built a broadly diversified portfolio with a strong equity bias, striking an optimal balance of providing long-term growth with acceptable levels of volatility. This chart illustrates the growth of an endowed scholarship from its initial funding of $100,000 in 1990, along with the cumulative value of earnings distributed to support scholarships. This endowed scholarship would have paid out just over $308,000 by 2025, while the corpus would have grown to more than $263,000.
Pooled long-term investment growth
The pooled long-term investment portfolio holds more than $3.8 billion in assets. The current size of the portfolio reflects the combination of generous gifts and effective investment strategy. Both are sources of pride and crucial to our success in growing the asset base, which translates into increased support to IU students, faculty, and programs.
Investment performance
The IU Foundation’s investment performance has exceeded the long-term objective of maintaining purchasing power over time. Since its inception, in 1989, the portfolio has posted an average annual return of 8.9%, consistently surpassing internal goals and comparing favorably versus the performance of peer institutions.
Pooled long-term asset allocation
Beyond the risk control benefits of proper diversification, asset allocation decisions are designed to emphasize the most attractive opportunities and to provide exposure to various investments that perform well in different economic environments.
Utilize donor funds
Private support to Indiana University is directed as donors wish, benefitting students, faculty, research, facilities, and areas of critical need. But the story does not end once funds are distributed; it continues in the innovations, student successes, and global impacts the gifts make possible.
You can see those impacts in the lives and work of our more than 805,000 living alumni; in top national rankings for music, public affairs, business, and more; and in the output of IU’s research and creative activities—from breakthrough treatments to innovative technology to life-altering art. The benefits of private support are truly profound.
Use of donor funds
Funds utilized each year are made available from the earnings on donor-restricted endowments combined with donor annual giving. During fiscal year 2025, with nearly 90% of the funds made available directed to student, faculty, research, and academic support, it is clear that pursuing excellence in world-class education, research, and scholarship is the greatest priority for IU donors.
Without this scholarship, my internship at the Library of Congress would not have been financially possible. While interning with the Library’s American Folklife Center, I have been able to put my skills into action.
Joseph JohnsonPhD candidate in ethnomusicology, recipient of IU’s Walter Center Internship Scholarship
Our heartfelt thanks
Thank you for reviewing the IU Foundation’s annual report.
Philanthropy is defined as “generosity in all its forms,” aiming to improve lives through collaboration. For centuries, IU donors have been essential partners in improving the world through IU, trusting us with their generosity, and championing our campuses across the state of Indiana.
From students earning a life-changing education to researchers pursuing solutions to our world's greatest problems, incredible outcomes are achieved because our supporters make opportunities happen.
We couldn't be more grateful—and we look forward to what’s ahead!