Endowment Gifts Create a Legacy for the Future
The Pepper Foundation endowment was first established with funds provided by Claude Pepper to carry on his and Mildred Pepper’s lifetime work. Their gift has since been supplemented by a bequest and funds from both private and public sources. Income from this endowment is used to support the programs in health care, research and scholarship into issues of the aging, support for education at all levels in the state and nation and encouragement of leadership and public service in the American democracy.
Because of the Foundation’s close connection with Florida State University, the State of Florida makes matching funds available through its State University system for gifts to create endowed chairs and endowed funds for students and for new programs. These gifts usually are based on a 60 per cent commitment from a private donor which is then matched by a 50 to 100 per cent contribution from a state fund maintained for that purpose.
Yet it should be noted that the private gift must come first to achieve a match. Endowed chairs valued at $1 million within the Pepper Center and the Institute on Aging and Public Policy can be established by a gift of $600,000 from private donors. Endowed scholarships and fellowships can be established by a gift of $100,000 or more from private donors.
Gifts to endowment are like no other gifts to the Foundation. They are permanent, and provide a solid basis for planning for the future. Because the Foundation uses the interest from endowment gifts and preserves the principal, they are the gifts that keep on giving to the worthwhile causes the Foundation itself supports all across America.
These uses of the income from the Foundation’s endowment keep the legacy of the Peppers alive and growing and promise to produce some of the most meaningful research and teaching on aging and its consequences available in the nation.
Those who make a gift to the endowment today will be a part of that growth of knowledge and understanding for the nation’s aging population as we enter the 21st century.
Return on Investment from an Annual Gift to the Pepper Foundation
The Pepper Foundation seeks annual support from donors to build on the legacy of Senator and Mrs. Pepper. Thanks to the generosity of numerous donors, the Pepper Foundation has been able to move forward as a living legacy to the extraordinary man and woman who gave it life, vitality and a strong economic start.
For example, an annual gift can help:
- Educate elders about public policy issues that impact their lives and about effective advocacy
- Serve as a conduit for assistance to other groups and programs which help individuals, particularly those programs that ease the burden on elderly citizens
- Sponsor or convene groups of experts to analyze public policy issues
- Maintain and add to the Claude Pepper Library, one of the most significant political historical collections in the nation as well as an outreach program providing many educational and public interest programs
- Participate in creating intergenerational programs to bring the elderly and the young together in settings which foster mutual understanding
- Develop and sponsor the Claude Pepper Museum in the Pepper Center on the FSU campus, and a Traveling Exhibit which travels to sites all over the country to bring whole new generations information about the Peppers and their many vital causes.
Donors may make annual gifts to the Foundation in various forms, including outright cash donations, appreciated property and securities, gifts in kind or bequests.