New Delhi: The Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), on Tuesday, approved the creation of an ‘Alumni Endowment fund and has set a target of collecting Rs 100 crore by the end of the year.
JNU vice-chancellor (VC), M Jagadesh Kumar, appealed to the university alumni to contribute to the JNU Alumni Endowment Fund to help the institution achieve “financial self-sufficiency”.
VC’s appeal came after the university’s executive council approved the creation of the fund.
“On behalf of JNU, I passionately appeal to the JNU alumni to come forward and generously make your contributions. Let us keep a target of raising Rs 100 crore by the end of this year. Through your continued support in the coming years, let us target to achieve near financial self-sufficiency for our university,” the VC said, reports theprint.in.
Around the globe, higher educational institutions benefit a great deal from contributions received from their alumni, he added. “The time has come for the university to reach out to its alumni across India and around the globe to contribute to the ‘JNU Alumni Endowment Fund’,” Kumar said.
Specifics of the endowment fund are not yet clear. However, the V-C gave details of the bank account in which donations are to be deposited in the letter to alumni.
He said the funds generated through this can be used to grant scholarships to the needy and deserving students.
“Faculty and students can be supported to participate in international conferences. Better research infrastructure can be created,” the VC said adding that the funds will also be used to invite top-notch international scholars to teach at JNU.
“The university will become more autonomous if we become financially self-sufficient. We have more than 80,000 alumni. Even if each one of them contributes around Rs 5,000 in a year, that will be about Rs 400 crores. Our ultimate goal is to have around Rs 1,000 crore corpus fund in a few years,” he further added.
An endowment fund is usually an investment trust established by a foundation that makes the withdrawals. Such funds are often used by universities, non-profit organisations, churches and hospitals, and is generally utilised for specific needs or to further the organisation’s operating process.
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