Our Mission
Supporting Excellence at Stony Brook University
Established in 1965, the Stony Brook Foundation is a private 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
It exists to advance the goals and strategic plan of Stony Brook University by raising
and managing private funds on the University’s behalf. Since its inception, the Foundation
has raised over $1 billion in gifts and employs best practices and procedures to ensure
all gifts to the University are wisely invested and distributed consistent with each
donor’s expressed intent.
Philanthropy that supports Stony Brook University’s programs and builds its endowment
has never been more important given the well-documented decline in state funding for
public higher education. Although New York State is more generous to its state university
system than those of other states, it funds less than 18 percent of Stony Brook’s
annual operating budget.
Ensuring access to a world-class public university education for highly qualified
students from families with limited means is central to our mission. At Stony Brook,
approximately 35 percent of students are Pell eligible, meaning they come from families
earning less than $30,000 a year. And among fellow members of the prestigious Association
of American Universities, Stony Brook University stands out with the second highest
proportion of Pell eligible students.
To meet this need, the Foundation raises private dollars for merit- and need-based
student scholarship and fellowship support. During the Campaign for Stony Brook, which
concluded in 2018, $52.6 million was raised for financial aid. Privately raised funds
help ensure that Stony Brook is not about privilege but about potential.
Additional funds raised by the Stony Brook Foundation for endowed faculty, innovative
technology, and basic and translational research have enabled the University to achieve
a critical margin of excellence and a U.S. News & World Report ranking of 32 among
public universities in the country.
The Foundation demonstrates careful fiduciary stewardship of all private funds, pursuing
a conservative investment strategy to safeguard the endowment’s principal in order
to provide steady funding for the initiatives to which donors have designated their
support. Even with this relatively conservative investment strategy, in fiscal year
2020-2021 the Stony Brook Foundation’s endowment yielded returns of 25.8 percent.
The Stony Brook Foundation values philanthropic support for students and faculty above
all: no fees are assessed on gifts intended for student scholarships, fellowships
or prizes, or for faculty awards. Where assessed, Stony Brook Foundation’s management
fees are in line with peer institutions. All endowed accounts are charged 1 percent
annually. Current use gifts are subject to a 10 percent management fee at the time
of the gift. These gift fees fund the Foundation’s exceptionally lean operating budget:
salary, benefits, and expenses of Stony Brook University and Stony Brook Medicine’s
highly-productive development team, as well as banking costs, required insurance,
annual audits and the Foundation’s business office operations.
The Foundation is directed by a volunteer Board of Trustees and is independently audited,
ensuring it complies with the standards and criteria established by the Financial
Accounting Standards Board and the IRS. The Foundation prepares a fiscal year annual
report that, along with its by-laws, is shared with donors and the public on its web
site ( stonybrook.edu/foundation). The Foundation’s IRS Form 990 is also openly accessible on GuideStar.
As these reports demonstrate, virtually all donors restrict their gifts to benefit
particular areas of interest (e.g., the arts program, an endowed chair in physics,
a scholarship in the humanities, a professor’s research needs, expanding Stony Brook
Children’s Hospital). For instance, during fiscal year 2021, 98.1 percent of the $110,197,688 received in donations was designated by donors for specific University programs and
initiatives.
Members of the Foundation’s volunteer Board of Trustees provide additional oversight
to ensure that the Foundation meets its fiduciary responsibility to the University,
donors and its charter. Board members represent a cross-section of notable leaders
in fields ranging from law to business and the arts. Some Trustees are also Stony
Brook alumni, most notably Chair of the Board and IMAX Corporation CEO Richard Gelfond
'76.
Dedicated to the University and devoted to ensuring the integrity of the Foundation’s
practices, these individuals are not only generous with their time, but also with
their personal financial resources. Since the Foundation’s inception, Trustees have
personally contributed more than $500 million for student scholarships, state of the
art research and instructional facilities, academic excellence, community service,
and patient care. In addition, every spring since 2000, the Board hosts the Stars
of Stony Brook Gala for academic programs and scholarship support, which has raised
more than $62 million to date.
Stony Brook University would not be the university it is today without its exceptional
partnership with the Stony Brook Foundation and with the generous individuals, corporations
and foundations who have invested in our students, our faculty and our future.