Oglethorpe University

The endowment is governed by the Board of Trustees' Investment Committee. Milford McGuirt, a retired KPMG Managing Partner, serves on that committee, per the firm's official communications. The board as a whole is chaired by S. Tammy Pearson (Vice President and Assistant General Counsel at Chick-fil-A) and vice-chaired by Cody Partin (President of Cox Family Office), placing allocator-level expertise directly in the oversight chain.

At an Altss-estimated $46M, Oglethorpe's endowment is significantly smaller than many liberal-arts peers. For reference, comparably-aged Southern colleges like Davidson or Furman hold endowments in the high hundreds of millions to over a billion dollars. The $50M Hammack gift in 2022 represented a step-change increase but left the pool at a scale where investment strategy is more comparable to a large family office than a major institutional fund.

Announced in May 2022, the $50M commitment from alumnus Bill Hammack — former president of heavy-civil contractor C.W. Matthews Contracting Co. — is the largest single donation in Oglethorpe's history. Hammack and his wife Diane also maintain a namesake foundation. The gift effectively reshaped the endowment's base, making donor-concentration risk a relevant allocator consideration.

The Board of Trustees ties directly into Atlanta's corporate and family-office ecosystem. Chair Tammy Pearson is a senior attorney at Chick-fil-A. Vice Chair Cody Partin runs the Cox Family Office — the private wealth vehicle of the Cox Enterprises family. Trustee Milford McGuirt brings Big Four audit-firm perspective from his tenure as a KPMG managing partner. This governance model embeds capital-allocation and operating-company sensibilities unusual for a small college.

Public disclosures are minimal. The university does not routinely publish detailed investment policies, benchmarks, or named fund managers. Allocators evaluating a potential relationship would need to engage directly with the Investment Committee to understand return targets, liquidity requirements, and the spending-policy structure.

Oglethorpe receives support from the Lettie Pate Whitehead Foundation, which funds scholarships across a network of Southern colleges, and from the Q. William Hammack, Jr. and Diane Hammack Foundation. The Coca-Cola Company also provides significant scholarship funding through the Coca-Cola First Generation Scholarship Program, underscoring the university's deep Atlanta corporate ties.

The governance structure — a board-level Investment Committee — suggests internal oversight, but the university has not publicly disclosed whether day-to-day management uses an outsourced chief investment officer or internal staff. Many endowments in the sub-$100M range adopt a hybrid model with consulting support; Oglethorpe's specific arrangement is not documented in public sources.