New Spelman board chair aims to increase endowment to $1 billion in five years

As New Year resolutions are in effect for most people, Spelman College has planned to develop a plan to improve its endowment to over $1 billion in the next five years. 

Senior consultant at Coxe Curry and Associates and Spelman’s board chair, Lovette Russell, will spearhead the lofty goal.

“Right now, we are the number one HBCU in the country – and really high as a liberal arts college also – but we want to be better,” Russell said.  “I would love to be just the number one liberal arts college, not necessarily number one for all of the HBCUs,” 

With most predominantly white institutions (PWI) already hitting the billion-dollar mark, Spelman is now averaging $500 million, making them halfway to their goal. 

“If you look at colleges and universities as a whole – predominantly white ones – their endowments easily start at $1 billion, which you can easily start need-blind scholarships,” Russell said. 

With Harvard reporting over $50 billion, Yale at $41 billion and UGA at $1.4 billion at the end of the 2022 fiscal year, Historically Black Colleges and Universities are over 70 percent smaller than PWIs. The 107 schools combined make up less than 11 percent of the Ivy League’s endowment. 

)Russell is often approached by applicants who were accepted to Spelman but could not enroll due to needing to be able to pay out of pocket. She says that she wants to give more scholarships to deserving students but the limited funds the school has access to prevents that from happening. 

To achieve this goal, Russell is working with Spelman’s president, Dr. Helene Gayle, and the board of trustees to create a strategic plan. They were joined at the hip after entering her new position. 

“I think she is the yin to my yang and we complement each other extremely well,” Russell said. “She brings this depth of knowledge and I know she will take Spelman to the next step where we need to be and we are in sync with wanting to get the endowment to $1 billion.”

Russell has no intention for Spelman to lose its rankings on her watch. 

“We’ve been at number one for over a decade and I don’t want to slip to number two,” Russell said. “I would love to think that during my chairmanship, we see some significant movement in what Spelman College is — who we are and what we become.”