In December 1995 Yale President Richard C. Levin, NEH
Chairman Sheldon Hackney and DeWitt Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund President
M. Christine DeVita announced the successful completion of the endowment
challenges awarded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the
DeWitt Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund. This represents a milestone in the
establishment of a core endowment of more than $4 million, the income from
which is restricted to support the Institute s activity in the humanities
in perpetuity. Endowment revenues not needed to support the Institute s
annual operation during the period of the three-year (1995-1997) $750,000
grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts, are being reinvested to build the
Institute s endowment. The goal is an eventual endowment comprising at
least $5 million in the humanities and $2 million in the sciences.
In this way, the Institute is attempting to secure not
only the operating support that will be necessary to fund fully its
current operations, but also to invest as much as possible of its
endowment revenues in order to increase the Institute's permanent funding
and thereby provide more adequately over the longer term for its efforts
locally and nationally.