Duke Endowment awards $56.7 million

February 11, 2010

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - The Duke Endowment awarded nearly $56.7 million in new grants in the Carolinas in 2009, down from $204.5 million a year earlier.

Including multi-year grants approved in previous years, the endowment actually paid out nearly $105 million in 2009, down from over $162 million in 2008.

While some of the decline in new grants reflects a falloff from big one-time grants the endowment made in 2008, weak financial markets affected the number of projects it could fund in 2009, Gene Cochrane, the endowment's president, says in a statement.

The value of the endowment's net assets fell to $2.2 billion at Dec. 31, 2008 from $3.3 billion a year earlier, and are estimated to have grown to $2.4 billion at the end of 2009.

The endowment in 2009 awarded 185 new grants, down from 410 in 2008, including:

• $7 million in new grants for children, down from $118 million.
• $24 million for higher education, up from $13 million.
• $18 million to improve health and wellness, down from $117 million.
• $7 million to support the leadership of faith communities and retired United Methodist ministers and their families, down from $143 million.

The endowment also made $809,000 in new grants to fund special programs or those that involved more than one of those four program areas, down from $60.1 million a year earlier, when the total included a one-time $50 million grant.

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