Questions people ask

A contribution to The Serendib Endowment is a genuine donation, given permanently, and and that permanence is what makes the fund work. Because the principal is never spent, it keeps generating returns indefinitely. Please only give what you are comfortable parting with permanently. There is no minimum amount.

The reason it cannot be returned is structural rather than administrative: the corpus is protected by the constitution and cannot be distributed or expended. See how the fund is governed.

As goods, not as cash. Nothing is transferred to individuals or families. The distribution is spent on specific items, bought locally in Sri Lanka, and delivered directly to the communities identified through a network of relationships built over many years. Funds are transferred through standard bank or remittance channels in the charity's name. Every distribution is documented with photographs and receipts, and contributors receive a personal update after each giving round.

The record of every distribution shows what this has looked like in practice, including the 2025 Cyclone Ditwah response.

You will receive two kinds of update. After each distribution to Sri Lanka, contributors receive a personal update: photographs from the ground, a note about the communities visited, and a record of what was given and to whom. Once a year, following the annual general meeting, the board publishes an annual report and a letter from the chair covering investment returns, the total distributed, and how the corpus has moved.

Both are published here: the annual letters on the updates page and the financial statements under annual reports.

This is one of the most important reasons for formalising the fund as a company limited by guarantee. The company has its own independent legal identity and belongs to no single person. It is controlled by a board of directors, currently three, and the constitution sets out what happens in each scenario, including on a winding up, when surplus assets must pass to another charity with similar purposes and can never be distributed to members. Your contribution keeps giving regardless of what happens to any individual involved in running the fund.

See the directors and advisers, and the constitution itself.

The fund is built with a deliberate buffer between what it aims to earn and what it distributes. We target a real return of CPI plus 4% a year and distribute less than that, calculated on a rolling three-year average corpus rather than the latest balance. Setting the target in real terms means the corpus is protected against inflation, not just in dollar terms.

In a difficult year, the policy is to slow down. Distributions may be smaller, less frequent, or deferred, and the board may resolve not to distribute at all that year. What will not happen is spending the corpus: the constitution prohibits it outright. The fund is designed for decades rather than for individual years.

Returns are not guaranteed, and past performance of any investment is not a guide to future performance. You can test this yourself on the modelling page: set the distribution rate above the return rate and watch what happens to the fund over twenty-five years.

The fund operates under a formal Investment Policy Statement that governs how the corpus is managed. The policy is designed to preserve capital over the long term while generating returns sufficient to fund annual distributions and grow the corpus. In summary, the fund targets a broadly diversified, low-cost portfolio guided by five principles:

The full Investment Policy Statement is published on the governance page, alongside the constitution.

Yes. The fund is designed to grow over time and will always welcome contributions, whether a single gift now or smaller amounts added each year. Both are equally valued and both become a permanent part of the corpus. Every additional contribution increases the annual distributions reaching communities in Sri Lanka, not just once but every year thereafter. See ways to give.