A Positive Balance
Gary Bouchard, Ph.D.

Spend a day with CFO Fr. Mark Cooper, and you will learn not just what an endowment is, but what it does.

It’s one of the oldest truisms in the non-profit world that in order for an institution to do good, it has to do well. For 27 years, it has been the work of Fr. Mark Cooper, O.S.B., to ensure that the college does well; and when he sets his spreadsheets aside and steps back from the hundreds of daily fiscal transactions, he acknowledges that in the past quarter century he has seen the college do immeasurable good.

Like any chief financial officer, he spots opportunities and advises others on the limits of the college’s resources. The lines on the college ledger that can put lines in the forehead of the treasurer are those familiar to any company or organization: personnel costs, medical premiums, new campus software and hardware, even snow removal.

On the income side, the majority of revenue comes directly from tuition and fees, with modest sums provided by auxiliary income, such as room and board.

In more recent years, and especially over the course of the last campaign, income from the college’s endowment has begun to have a real and positive impact. “Every one million dollars in the endowment furnishes $40,000 to the operational budget of the college,” Fr. Mark notes, offering the familiar four percent spending formula. “So the college’s current endowment of approximately $70 million provides $2.8 million to that operational budget, a greater amount than ever before.”

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