Trinity International University Endowment

Trinity International University Endowment

Founded in 1897, Trinity International University operates as the educational arm of the Evangelical Free Church of America. The endowment exists to support TIU's three remaining academic units — Trinity College, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and Trinity Law School — though the university's physical footprint is in rapid flux. Eric Halvorson took over as the 18th president in February 2026, stepping into an organization that had already announced the pending 2025 sale of its core Bannockburn campus and the divestiture of Camp Timber-lee in Wisconsin. The endowment's role is increasingly about funding operations across a distributed real estate model, with law school instruction consolidated in Santa Ana, California, and a regional center operating in Miami. The endowment does not publicly disclose an asset allocation, but its recent property sales — including the 60-acre Bannockburn campus serving the divinity school and a recreational camp in East Troy, Wisconsin — reveal a portfolio rich in real assets now being converted to investable securities. Prior grant relationships, such as multimillion-dollar funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. for theological education initiatives, point to a co-mingled pool that historically blended philanthropic contributions with traditional return-seeking capital. The investment committee, chaired by a Singapore-based asset management executive, suggests connectivity to Asian institutional networks, though the internal team size and manager roster remain private. The university's endowment is structurally interwoven with the Trinity International University Foundation, its primary philanthropic vehicle. In 2025, TIU announced Trinity Western University's agreement to acquire Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, a deal that would further untether the endowment from its largest academic brand. This transaction follows years of enrollment pressure that pushed the university to close its residential undergraduate programs at the Bannockburn campus in 2023 and shift to an online-only college model. Chairman Kwong's appointment reflects a board-level preference for institutional investment experience during a period of balance-sheet restructuring. The endowment's unusual structure lies in its dual identity: it is a perpetual fund supporting a theological institution now operating with near-zero physical campus infrastructure for its undergraduate division. Most small endowments in distress preserve their real estate; TIU is monetizing it ahead of a divinity-school spinout, leaving a lean, geographically diffuse entity whose future investment policy depends entirely on the board's post-divestiture liquidity decisions.