# Who Holds a Public University's Money: The Oregon Foundations Behind OHSU and Oregon State A public university cannot easily hold its own endowment, so a separate nonprofit does it. Read from their filings: two billion-dollar Oregon foundations, a $2 billion Knight gift, and a tax form worth double the audit. Author: J.A. Watte Published: July 4, 2026 Source: https://jwatte.com/blog/oregon-university-foundations-ledger/ --- When you give money to a public university, you usually do not give it to the university. You give it to a separate nonprofit corporation with its own board and its own tax return, which holds the school's private endowment and channels the gifts to it. This is one of the least understood structures in American nonprofit life, and two Oregon examples filed returns this week that show it clearly, each holding a billion-dollar endowment on behalf of a state university. A third Oregon filing, tiny and easily confused with a $107 billion pension, is a useful reminder to read the name on the form. Everything below is from the Form 990s, the foundations' audited statements, and the public record. ## Why a public university's money files its own tax return A state university is a government entity, which makes it awkward to hold and invest private gifts and to give donors a clean charitable deduction. So the standard solution is a university foundation: a separate 501(c)(3) charity, legally distinct from the school, whose entire job is to raise, invest, and steward private philanthropy for it ([CASE](https://www.case.org/connect/college-and-university-foundations)). The foundation has its own trustees, often investment professionals, who manage the endowment separately from the university's operating leadership, and it keeps the donated money segregated from state funds ([Smith and Howard](https://www.smith-howard.com/should-schools-set-up-a-separate-foundation-to-manage-their-endowment/)). Many are organized as a particular public-charity subtype, the supporting organization, and the rules require even a tiny one to file a full Form 990 or 990-EZ every year rather than the short electronic postcard ([IRS](https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/charitable-organizations/forms-990-990-ez-and-990-n-509a3-supporting-organizations)). That is why, when you look up a public university's philanthropic money, it appears as its own return under the word Foundation, distinct from the university itself. The two returns below are the foundations, not the schools. ## The OHSU Foundation: a billion-dollar endowment and a planned deficit The Oregon Health and Science University Foundation was established in 1970 to raise private support for OHSU, Oregon's only public academic health center and Portland's largest employer ([OHSU Foundation](https://ohsufoundation.org/about-the-foundation/); [OHSU](https://www.ohsu.edu/about)). Its filing for the year ending June 30, 2024 reports something that looks alarming until you understand it: total revenue of $140,597,865 against total expenses of $187,709,397, a deficit of roughly $47 million. That is not distress. It is the point of the institution. A university foundation exists to move money to its university, and in a strong year it distributes more to OHSU than it raises, drawing the difference from the endowment the way any endowment funds a payout. Net assets stood at $1,545,813,485, and the endowment itself was $985.9 million at mid-2024, crossing $1 billion the following year ([OHSU Foundation audited statements](https://ohsufoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/FY25-OHSUF-Audited-Financial-Statement.pdf)). That endowment is invested in the same markets every institution in this series invests in, which is why its investment return, $44.8 million in the year counting realized gains, swings the top line. The most newsworthy thing about OHSU right now runs through this foundation. In September 2013, Nike co-founder Phil Knight and his wife Penny pledged $500 million to OHSU on the condition that it raise a matching $500 million within two years; OHSU met the match in 2015, for $1 billion toward its Knight Cancer Institute ([OHSU](https://news.ohsu.edu/2015/06/24/ohsu-sets-fundraising-record-by-meeting-1-billion-challenge-from-nike-co-founder-and-wife)). And in August 2025 the Knights committed another $2 billion to the institute, reported as the largest single donation ever made to a United States university, college, or academic health center ([OHSU](https://news.ohsu.edu/2025/08/14/ohsu-knight-cancer-institute-receives-record-2-billion-commitment-from-phil-and-penny-knight)). A gift of that size flows through the foundation, and it lands at a hard moment for OHSU itself, which called off a planned merger with Legacy Health in May 2025 after regulators raised market-concentration concerns, and which cut hundreds of jobs in its 2025 budget against a projected operating loss ([OPB](https://www.opb.org/article/2025/05/05/ohsu-legacy-merger/); [Becker's](https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/ohsu-approves-plans-to-cut-500-jobs.html)). The foundation, led during the filing year by interim president Jill Eiland and now by president Kate Azizi, is the steady philanthropic engine beside a university under real financial strain. ## The OSU Foundation: read the audit, not just the tax form The Oregon State University Foundation, founded in 1947 with a first gift of $5, holds and invests the private endowment for Oregon's land-grant university in Corvallis ([OSU Foundation history](https://www.fororegonstate.org/about/our-history)). Its filing for the year ending June 30, 2025 reports $175,978,965 in revenue and a healthy $43,590,033 surplus, and its endowment crossed $1 billion for the first time, reaching $1.01 billion on a 12 percent investment return ([Oregon Stater](https://oregonstater.org/thats-billion-with-a-b/)). But its balance sheet is a small lesson in why you read the audited statements and not only the tax form. The 990 shows $2.28 billion in total assets against $1.1 billion in liabilities. The foundation's own audited statements, for the same date, show $1.34 billion in assets and only $110 million in liabilities ([OSU Foundation audited statements](https://www.fororegonstate.org/docs/default-source/default-document-library/4.0-about/4.09-financial-information/u_fy-25-osu-foundation-audited_fs.pdf)). The billion-dollar gap is a tax-form gross-up: the 990 reports certain pooled investment and custodial positions at their gross value on both sides of the ledger, inflating assets and liabilities in equal measure while net assets barely move. It is the same lesson the [foundations post](/blog/the-new-fortunes/) taught about 990-PF revenue. The number on the tax return is not wrong, exactly, but it is not what the institution is worth, and only the audit tells you which is which. The real liabilities, the audited $110 million, are themselves instructive: split-interest agreements the foundation owes to living donors of gift annuities and remainder trusts, and endowment money it holds as a custodian for the university and therefore owes back. A university foundation's books are full of money that is legally in transit, promised to a donor for life or held on behalf of the school. The foundation's biggest recent gift ties this Oregon story back to the [largest new fortunes in America](/blog/the-new-fortunes/): $50 million from NVIDIA founder Jensen Huang and his wife Lori, both Oregon State graduates, matched by another $50 million, toward a roughly $200 million innovation complex bearing their names ([OSU Foundation](https://www.fororegonstate.org/stay-informed/impact-stories/detail/50-million-gift-by-nvidia-founder-and-spouse)). The same man whose personal foundation swelled past $9 billion on Nvidia stock gave $50 million to the state school where he started, and it landed in this foundation's books. Led by president and chief executive Shawn Scoville, the OSU Foundation engaged more than 42,000 donors in the year and is running a $1.75 billion campaign. ## The small one, and the giant it is not The third Oregon filing is a warning about names. Oregon PERS Retirees, Inc. sounds like it might be the enormous state pension fund. It is not. It is a small membership and advocacy nonprofit, a 501(c)(4) that operates as OPRI and exists to protect the interests of Oregon's retired public employees, lobbying the legislature and publishing a newsletter on dues of $20 a year ([OPRI](https://opri.org/about-opri/)). Its most recent public filing, a short-form 990-EZ for the year ending April 2022, reports $46,053 in revenue and $162,469 in total assets ([ProPublica](https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/931060714)). The actual Oregon Public Employees Retirement System, the government pension it advocates about, holds a fund worth roughly $107 billion, managed by the Oregon State Treasury and invested in the same public and private markets as everything else in this series ([Oregon Treasury](https://www.oregon.gov/treasury/invested-for-oregon/pages/oregon-investment-council.aspx)). The advocacy nonprofit is about one 650-thousandth the size of the pension it is named for. It is a useful reminder that the word on the tax return matters, and that a $162,000 civic group and a $107 billion pension fund can share almost the same name. ## The one well, in Oregon Three Oregon filings, one finding, the same one this whole series keeps reaching. Two of them are billion-dollar endowments that hold a public university's private money and invest it in the markets, so that a foundation's investment return, and a single donor's gift, moves what the university can do. The third is a small group that watches over the interests of retirees whose $107 billion pension is invested in those same markets. The endowment behind a cancer institute, the endowment behind a land-grant university, and the pension behind a retired schoolteacher all lower their buckets into the same well. Whether the institution is a hospital, a college, or a retiree's future, the money that funds it is somewhere in the market, and the tax return, read carefully and checked against the audit, is where you find out exactly where. ## Related reading - [The New Fortunes](/blog/the-new-fortunes/): Jensen Huang's $9 billion foundation, and the other big new grantmakers, read from their filings. - [Same Law, Five Outcomes](/blog/university-endowments-ledger/): the universities themselves, and the endowment tax that sorts them. - [The Standing Institutions](/blog/the-standing-institutions/): Georgetown and the other university balance sheets, and what a foundation-held endowment looks like from the school's side. - [The Working Ledgers](/blog/the-working-ledgers/): the market underneath every institution that holds money. ## Fact-check notes and sources - **The OHSU Foundation figures** (total revenue $140,597,865; total expenses $187,709,397; net assets $1,545,813,485 for the year ending June 30, 2024; investment return of $44.8 million including realized gains; endowment of $985.9 million at mid-2024, crossing $1 billion the next year): from its IRS Form 990 (EIN 23-7083114) via [ProPublica](https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/237083114) and its [audited financial statements](https://ohsufoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/FY25-OHSUF-Audited-Financial-Statement.pdf). The 1970 establishment and mission per [the OHSU Foundation](https://ohsufoundation.org/about-the-foundation/); OHSU as Oregon's only public academic health center per [OHSU](https://www.ohsu.edu/about). Jill Eiland served as interim president in the filing year at $555,228; Kate Azizi was named president in July 2024 ([OHSU](https://news.ohsu.edu/2024/07/09/kate-azizi-named-president-of-ohsu-foundation)). - **The Knight Cancer gifts** (the 2013 pledge of $500 million matched in 2015 for $1 billion, and the August 2025 commitment of $2 billion described as the largest single gift ever to a US academic institution): [OHSU](https://news.ohsu.edu/2015/06/24/ohsu-sets-fundraising-record-by-meeting-1-billion-challenge-from-nike-co-founder-and-wife) and [OHSU](https://news.ohsu.edu/2025/08/14/ohsu-knight-cancer-institute-receives-record-2-billion-commitment-from-phil-and-penny-knight). **The terminated Legacy Health merger and the 2025 job cuts**: [OPB](https://www.opb.org/article/2025/05/05/ohsu-legacy-merger/) and [Becker's Hospital Review](https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/ohsu-approves-plans-to-cut-500-jobs.html). - **The OSU Foundation figures** (revenue $175,978,965 and surplus $43,590,033 for the year ending June 30, 2025; the endowment crossing $1 billion to $1.01 billion on a 12 percent return): its IRS Form 990 (EIN 93-6022772) via [ProPublica](https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/936022772) and [the Oregon Stater](https://oregonstater.org/thats-billion-with-a-b/). **The balance-sheet discrepancy** (the 990's roughly $2.28 billion in assets and $1.1 billion in liabilities versus the audited $1.34 billion and $110 million, the gap being a gross-up of pooled and custodial positions): the [OSU Foundation's audited financial statements](https://www.fororegonstate.org/docs/default-source/default-document-library/4.0-about/4.09-financial-information/u_fy-25-osu-foundation-audited_fs.pdf). The 1947 founding per [the OSU Foundation](https://www.fororegonstate.org/about/our-history), and the $50 million Huang gift per [the OSU Foundation](https://www.fororegonstate.org/stay-informed/impact-stories/detail/50-million-gift-by-nvidia-founder-and-spouse). - **Oregon PERS Retirees, Inc. (OPRI)** as a 501(c)(4) advocacy nonprofit with $46,053 in revenue and $162,469 in assets on its 990-EZ for the year ending April 2022: [ProPublica](https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/931060714) and [OPRI](https://opri.org/about-opri/). **The distinct state Oregon Public Employees Retirement System fund of roughly $107 billion**: [the Oregon State Treasury](https://www.oregon.gov/treasury/invested-for-oregon/pages/oregon-investment-council.aspx). *This post is informational, not financial advice. All figures are reproduced from public filings, audited statements, and the public record. Organizations and individuals are discussed from the public record as nominative fair use, with no affiliation implied and nothing endorsed by any of them.* --- Canonical HTML: https://jwatte.com/blog/oregon-university-foundations-ledger/ RSS: https://jwatte.com/feed.xml JSON Feed: https://jwatte.com/feed.json Hero image: https://jwatte.com/images/oregon-university-foundations-ledger.webp