Endowment gifts to San Diego State University are placed in the institution's Pooled Endowment Fund for investment and oversight purposes. The Campanile Foundation Board of Directors has delegated decisions regarding the investment of the Campanile Foundation Endowment to the Finance & Investment Committee within a set of broad guidelines designed to preserve and augment the value of the endowment. The Board of Directors have adopted the broad objective of investing endowment assets to preserve the long-range purchasing power of both the principal and the endowment income in order to provide intergenerational equity to both students and faculty.

The Board of Directors seeks investment returns through a diversified, professionally managed investment portfolio consistent with its approved Investment Policy Statement. To achieve its investment objective, the Campanile Foundation retains an independent investment consultant to provide ongoing evaluation of economic conditions, quarterly manager performance reviews, and to provide investment manager selection advice. Investment managers are selected to pursue a specific portfolio management strategy.

These firms are selected based on a number of factors, including the asset class in which they have expertise, the investment style they utilize, and historical performance. The Board sets the overall asset allocation targets and ranges through the Investment Policy Statement and the Finance & Investment Committee manages the portfolio within those parameters.

Overall investment performance and specific manager evaluations and reviews take place on a quarterly basis. The evaluation benchmarks used for each manager is against the accepted benchmark for the asset class they have been given an allocation for, as well as their performance within their peer group.

A major consideration in the management, investment, and evaluation of endowment funds is to ensure that The Campanile Foundation Board meets all of its fiduciary responsibilities to donors. This includes meeting all federal, state, and CSU regulations including the Uniform Management of Institutional Funds Act (UMIFA) and Uniform Prudent Investor Act (UPIA).

The Board of Directors is responsible for determining the annual distribution rate of the Endowment Fund, which seeks to balance current income needs and long-term investment objectives. The distribution rate for the fiscal year 2007-2008, is 4.35% of the three-year moving average of the market value. If the total return on the portfolio does not provide sufficient income to make the full annual distribution, then only the actual income earned is distributed unless unrealized gains are available in the book value of endowment.