College of Charleston Foundation

College of Charleston Foundation

The College of Charleston Foundation was founded in 1970 to receive, invest, and steward private gifts for the exclusive benefit of the College. Chief Executive Officer Daniel Frezza also serves as Chief Advancement Officer for the College, linking fundraising directly to the endowment's governance. Board oversight includes private investor and Finance/Audit Committee Chair Stephen R. Kerrigan, whose gift established the Kerrigan Investment Program, and Frontier Growth founding partner Richard Maclean. The Foundation's asset base extends well beyond a conventional securities portfolio. Directly held properties include the Stono Preserve in Hollywood, S.C., the historic Blacklock House at 18 Bull Street, and multiple student-housing facilities across the Charleston peninsula. It also owns the College of Charleston Foundation Publishing Company, a limited liability company, and manages a collection of tangible assets that encompasses the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art's holdings and the College's sailing fleet. Operational revenue from these hard assets supplements donor-directed investment returns. Scale sits at an estimated $243 million, though the Foundation does not publicly disclose a consolidated AUM figure. Real estate anchors the on-campus footprint, while board members from Frontier Growth and South Atlantic Bank bring private-markets and regional banking relationships to the investment committee. The Foundation participates in the North American Reciprocal Museum association through the Halsey Institute, granting members reciprocal access to over 1,000 cultural institutions. No separate philanthropic vehicle is reported; the Foundation itself serves as the primary receiving and granting entity. Structurally, the Foundation functions as a closely held endowment rather than an outsourced CIO model. Governance runs through a board that combines Advancement leadership, investment professionals, and community bank executives, creating a regional funding circuit where Charleston-based donors and dealmakers feed the College's balance sheet. That architecture keeps asset-allocation decisions inside a tight local network, pairing campus real-asset ownership with the fundraising machinery of a public liberal arts institution.