The mission of the Trusts and Estates group is to record, manage, and safeguard assets of estates, trusts and certain special investments and to provide a high level of service to participants in trusts or life income arrangements managed by Yale. This group interacts with the Office of Development concerning external relationships with donors or prospects, with the Investments Office in portfolio management decisions, with the General Counsel’s Office in legal matters, and with other Finance Division offices for accounting matters.

Trusts and Estates is responsible for the following:

Administration and Investment of Internal Trusts and Annuities. The University enters into and manages many arrangements known as planned gifts, Life income gifts, or split interest gifts. These arrangements include charitable remainder trusts, pooled income funds and charitable gift annuities in which a donor receives income for their lifetime after making a capital gift. The University’s duties as trustee or payer includes record keeping, accounting, providing tax and investment reports for beneficiaries, beneficiary payments, filing federal and state tax returns, investing the assets, regulatory compliance and the custodian bank relationships.

Oversight of External Trusts and Estates. The University has beneficial interests in many estates and trusts and similar arrangements held by outside trustees or fiduciaries. This office serves as the representative to trustees or executors managing these assets. These interests are recorded, protected, and the assets are managed and invested in the University’s best interests or distributed or liquidated appropriately.

Management of Special Assets. These acquired non-cash assets are not part of the pooled investments of the Yale Endowment. These special assets include real estate, limited partnerships, tangible personal property, mineral rights, royalties, copyrights, private equity, life insurance and other items. These are recorded and managed or liquidated as appropriate.