Definition of "endowment fund" []

• The capital that provides income for an institution (noun)

WordNet. Princeton University. 2010.

• "In 1916 Bok sought Mr. Alexander Van Rensselaer, the president of the Philadelphia Orchestra Association, and proposed that he, himself, should guarantee the deficit of the orchestra for five years, provided that during that period an endowment fund should be raised, contributed by a large number of subscribers, and sufficient in amount to meet, from its interest, the annual deficit."
• "From 1975 to 1977, he cochaired, with Jimmy Doolittle, the Charles A. Lindbergh Memorial Fund, which by the fiftieth anniversary of Lindbergh’s historic flight, in May 1977, raised over $5 million for an endowment fund supporting young scientists, explorers, and conservationists."
• "Thus, instead of a guarantee fund, contributed by thirteen hundred subscribers, with the necessity for annual collection, an endowment fund of one million eight hundred thousand dollars, contributed by fourteen thousand subscribers, has been secured; and the Philadelphia Orchestra has been promoted from a privately maintained organization to a public institution in which fourteen thousand residents of Philadelphia feel a proprietary interest."