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At the University of Wyoming Foundation, we deeply value your generosity and the confidence you place in us. We are committed to using your contributions responsibly, safeguarding your privacy, and providing transparent honest communication about how your support makes a difference to Wyoming’s university.
Donor Bill of RightsAt the University of Wyoming Foundation, impact is more than a measure of outcomes—it's the heart of our mission, our collective purpose. It begins with people and is powered by partnership.
When you create an endowed fund, you’re making a lasting difference for generations to come. Your generosity sets the stage for a brighter future at the University of Wyoming.
Endowments are like a forever gift—a solid foundation of assets that keeps on giving. Each year, these funds generate a steady stream of income to support the causes you care about most, from student scholarships to cutting-edge programs. This support goes beyond what the State of Wyoming provides, helping UW reach new heights of excellence.
Gifts from alumni, businesses, foundations, and friends like you come together in our endowment fund. Every year, the UW Foundation shares millions from this fund to fuel student success, empower faculty, enrich academic programs, and keep our campus thriving—think scholarships, library resources, new facilities, and more. Your endowment is a powerful way to make a lasting impact!
Thanks to our generous supporters, our endowment portfolio now exceeds $900 million (as of June 30, 2025)—getting us closer to the billion-dollar mark! In FY 2024–25, your endowed gifts fueled $46.6 million in support for the University of Wyoming. (That’s separate from other generous gifts used directly for immediate needs.) This funding powered scholarships, faculty, programs, and more, all from the endowment’s earnings. Your contributions are building a stronger UW every day!
The UW Foundation investment team continually evaluates asset allocation with special attention to the investment objectives and cash-flow needs of the endowment and the university. The liquidity profile of the pool remains strong in meeting the needs of UW for multiple years, even during turbulent markets. The UW Foundation investment team updates the allocation targets every year to help address an ever-changing financial landscape as the result of conversations between our Board of Directors and our consultant, Meketa.
Click below to learn more about how the UW Foundation proactively and effectively manages investments.
Delivering Sustainable Value
Fiscal Investment markets in fiscal year 2025 continued to revolve around technological deployment. Coined on Twitter 12 years ago, the term “hyperscaler” is now part of the public lexicon. The term originally described the highly scalable cloud infrastructures deployed by Amazon Web Services and Google Search. A financial writer we follow published an interesting note two years ago describing how people tend to overestimate what is possible in the near term and underestimate what can be done over the long term. The biggest tech companies—Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta—were valued at a modest $1.1 trillion when the term was first introduced. Over the ensuing decade, these same firms would generate more than $1.3 trillion in aggregate free cash flow—a generational investment opportunity.
As in past cycles, a growing contingent of analysts and consultants has begun invoking the word “bubble” in their communications with clients and the world at large. The world keeps turning, however, and although the buildout of AI-driven cloud computing infrastructure remains relentless, the true bottleneck lies in power generation, an area we have made additional investments.
In 2025, we made significant strides in reshaping our portfolio to align with our investment objectives. Our public equity allocation reached its policy target through organic growth and additional investments, with managers collectively achieving a 19% return—surpassing the benchmark by 290 basis points. Public fixed income also outperformed, delivering a 9.6% return. On a lagged basis, private debt returned 11.1%,exceeding its benchmark by 200 basis points.
Private equity performance was impacted primarily by a markdown in the Custodia Bank investment. The original thesis was that Custodia would gain a Federal Reserve master account and pioneer tokenized bank deposits and stablecoin technology under Wyoming’s Special Purpose Depository Institution framework. This has not materialized due to regulatory obstruction rather than business failure. The State of Wyoming had spent the prior two years crafting Special Purpose Depository Institution legislation with input from the Kansas City Federal Reserve. Despite that collaboration, after the State of Wyoming applied for a master account in October 2020, the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City deemed the application complete in early 2021 but withheld action, prompting Custodia to file suit in mid–2022 for unreasonable delay. Formal denials by both the Federal Reserve Board and the Kansas City Federal Bank followed in early 2023,citing concerns over Custodia’s crypto exposure and lack of FDIC insurance. Subsequent rulings in 2024 affirmed the Fed’s discretion under the Monetary Control Act, leading Custodia to appeal to the Tenth Circuit, where the case remains active as of today, which rendered a four-year competitive head start effectively lost.
Along the way, Custodia was targeted by federal bank regulators and endured five “debankings,” significant legal costs, and layoffs while operating through correspondent banking partners. This prolonged process ultimately forced Custodia to downsize to conserve capital and led to our decision to write down the investment. Politics clearly drove much of the outcome, yet the tide appears to be turning. Despite headwinds, we remain optimistic about Custodia’s tokenized payment technology and anticipate improved results through its joint venture with Texas-based Vantage Bank and the network of community banks it continues to build. Real estate continued to outperform its benchmark, providing stable returns despite interest rates rising significantly from COVID-era lows. Exposure remains concentrated in multi-family and industrial assets, with minimal office exposure limited to legacy managers.
Taking a step back and viewing the portfolio as a whole, our top-performing position was Bitcoin, an investment initiated in 2021and incrementally increased during price dips. Bitcoin has grown fourfold in value and now requires periodic rebalancing, yet it continues to significantly boost portfolio returns.
When evaluating private market investments, we focus on Distributions-to-Paid-In-Capital (DPI) as the primary metric, as it reflects actual cash returned to investors. In 2025, distributions were $49million, exceeding capital calls—a strong outcome given suppressed IPO and M&A activity. Additionally, one of our venture managers just announced the sale of a portfolio company to a global pharmaceutical company that will return over half of our fund investment in the coming months. We expect further liquidity events in our buyout and venture funds in 2026.
The portfolio achieved an 8.6% lagged return in fiscal year 2025, falling just short of our 9% cost of capital target. The Custodia write-down detracted from performance, but we remain confident in the portfolio including venture positions to drive forward returns.
We are committed to a pragmatic investment approach within our allocation framework—prioritizing reduced complexity and fees while targeting areas of capital retreat and technological growth. Our goal is to exceed our 9% cost of capital while delivering sustainable value to support the University of Wyoming’s students.
– UW Foundation Investment Team
The University of Wyoming Foundation funds its operation through advancement fees and a small amount of direct university support.
The UW Foundation’s goals are to elevate the level of private gifts supporting the University of Wyoming and to continuously improve the strength of the university endowment. These advancement fees help cover direct operating costs related to fundraising, gift processing, stewarding, and investing private contributions, and to provide the resources necessary to encourage greater philanthropic support for UW students, faculty, and programs.
Effective July 1, 2021, the UW Foundation will assess a 1.25% advancement fee on all gifts and on all appropriate non-gifts (such as royalties, fundraisers, ticket event sales, etc.). Endowment funds are also assessed an annual fee of 1.25% (1.0% on funds provided by the State of Wyoming under its matching program) which is assessed quarterly based upon the market value of the funds.
Of the peer institutions with assets below $1 billion, more than 70 percent utilize a similar fee structure. In most cases, the UW Foundation fee is lower than its peer institutions.
The advancement fees do not affect the tax deductibility of charitable contributions. Donors will receive gift receipts for the full amount of their gifts.
Click below to download the UW Foundation Certificate of Exemption.
The University of Wyoming Foundation is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization soliciting tax-deductible private contributions for the benefit of the University of Wyoming. The foundation is registered to solicit charitable contributions with the appropriate governing authorities in all states requiring registration. A copy of the latest audited financial statement is available. Registration filed by this organization and a description of our programs and activities may be obtained by writing to 222 S 22nd Street, Laramie, WY 82070 or by calling (307) 766-6300.
If you are a resident of one of the following states, you may obtain financial information directly from the state agency.
Maryland:
The Office of the Secretary of State, 16 Francis St. #1, Annapolis, MD 21401.
New Jersey:
Information filed with the attorney general concerning this charitable solicitation and the percentage of contributions received by the charity during the last reporting period that were dedicated to the charitable purpose may be obtained from the attorney general of the state of New Jersey by calling (973) 504-6215 and is available on the internet at https://charportal.dca.njoag.gov/. Registration with the attorney general does not imply endorsement.
New York:
Attorney General Charities Bureau, 120 Broadway, 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10271.
Washington:
Secretary of State, (800) 332-4483 or https://www.sos.wa.gov/corporations-charities#nonprofits_charities.
Registration with a state agency does not constitute or imply endorsement, approval, or recommendation by that state.
I give to the University of Wyoming Foundation (a nonprofit corporation located at 222 S. 22nd Street, Laramie, Wyoming, or its successor) [$amount, % of the estate, or description of the property] to benefit the University of Wyoming generally [or as specifically described].”
