The Campanile Foundation assumed the responsibility for the San Diego State University Endowment on July 1, 2000. The Campanile Foundation created a consolidated endowment pool on that date to provide a vehicle through which donors can provide permanent funding for schools, colleges and programs of their choice. The Endowment Pool consists of more than 500 separate endowment accounts and is similar to a mutual fund in that each individual endowment buys units fund. The Board of Directors of the Campanile Foundation manages the investment of endowment funds through a formal Investment Policy Statement that provides the operating guidelines to the Science & Investment Committee. The Investment Policy Statement is consistent with the fiduciary obligations of not-for-profit organizations under federal and state laws, CSU policies, and the Uniform Management of Institutional Funds Act (UMIFA) and the Uniform Prudent Investor Act (UPIA).

The benefit of endowment giving flows from the ability to invest funds for the long-term to provide not only an annual distribution for spending but growth through the re-investment of returns in excess of the annual spending rate to ensure that the gift will not be eroded by inflation. The spending policy determines how much of the total return (income and appreciation) will be distributed to support programs and how much will be re-invested in the endowment fund. In 2005-2006, the Board of Directors set the annual spending policy of the endowment fund at 4.35% of a three-year moving average of market value. The purpose of a spending policy is to reduce the volatility of distributions that might be produced by the up and down financial markets.

The endowment pool is invested based on an a set allocation strategy incorporated in the Campanile Foundation Investment Policy Statement. Investment strategies include exposure to both domestic and international stocks and binds as well as locations to absolute return strategies. By using a variety of investment strategies, the overall risk (volatility) of the endowment pool is reduced.

The performance objective of the investment Policy Statement is a long-term elected annual return of 8.25%. This target is based upon simulations of historical returns in the past 100 years for different asset allocations. The current asset allocation mix is designed to return the long-term objective of 8.25%. The Campanile Foundation currently has allocations with eight different investment managers covering the following asset investment classes: Large-Cap Growth, Large-Cap Value, Small-Cap Value, International, Fixed Income, Real Estate, and Alternative Assets.

For the 02-03, 03-04, 04-05, 05-06, and 06-07 fiscal years, the total average return of the fund was 1.%, 2.4%, 4.3%, 18.2%, 11.7%, 12.7%, and 16.8% respectively. The total average return for the past five fiscal years ranked in the top 14% of university endowments.