Endowment Results Season Is an Outreach Window: What to Send a CIO After a 10% Year or a 31% One

The best outreach has a reason to exist that the reader already cares about. For the next few weeks, university endowments are handing GPs that reason. Stanford announced on 24 September 2026 that its merged pool returned 31.7% in the fiscal year to 30 June and was worth $61.5 billion. Penn followed on 25 September with a 27.4% return, its second-best year behind the 41.1% of fiscal 2021. MIT reported on 2 October a 10.3% return and a $29.2 billion endowment, with an 11.7% ten-year annualised return. The spread of more than 21 percentage points between the highest and lowest of those three results is the starting point for a considered note to a chief investment officer.

Step 1: Anchor on the long-run number, not the latest one

A one-year return of 31.7% or 10.3% tells a CIO little about what you should say. Stanford's own leadership pointed to its ten-year record, which it described as placing the university among the top 5% of higher education endowments, and MIT placed its 11.7% decade figure next to the 10.3% year. Follow their lead. A sentence such as "your ten-year record is the number we study" shows that you read the release, and it avoids congratulating a CIO on luck.

Step 2: Match your note to the portfolio that produced the result

A Stanford University endowment result driven by public and private equity and absolute return strategies suggests a team that values concentration and returns on its best ideas. The University of Pennsylvania endowment result was reportedly driven by venture holdings in artificial intelligence and a major IPO, so a distributions story is relevant. The MIT endowment release gave no allocation breakdown, so ask a question rather than assume. Read our analysis of MIT's 10.3% return against its peers before you write.

Step 3: Include one data point that the CIO can use

A short note with a single useful figure beats a long pitch. For a team that just had a strong year, one number might be how your last fund's cash returned compares with its mark. For a team with a lower return, it might be how your strategy performed in a strong public equity year. Keep it to three sentences and one chart, and do not attach a full deck to a first email.

Step 4: Ask a pacing question

End with a question the CIO can answer in a line. Are you reviewing managers in your strategy in the coming year? Who on your team looks at emerging managers? A question about endowment pacing is easier to answer than a request for a meeting, and it tells you whether to follow up now or in six months. Our research on LP response speed shows why LPs weigh responsiveness, so make your question easy to answer quickly.

Step 5: Time the follow-up to the calendar, not to your impatience

Endowments report returns once a year, and last year several of the largest reported in the second half of October. That makes the next four weeks a rolling window as more results arrive, and your note will read best when it is among the first to use the result rather than the last. Send one follow-up after about two weeks with a new piece of information, such as a portfolio update. Then wait until the next natural point, such as your own quarterly letter. For a model of how to stay inside an LP's process, see how a pension search works with quiet periods and screens.

A short model note shows how the steps fit together. The first sentence names the result and the ten-year figure you read. The second gives your single data point, such as the share of your last fund's capital returned as cash. The third says what you do and for whom in one clause. The last asks whether the team is reviewing managers in your strategy over the next year and who handles it. Four sentences, no attachment, and a signature with your fund's name and a link to a one-page summary are enough. If the CIO replies, the one-pager becomes the second message, and the deck comes later.

What to leave out

Leave out any claim about the endowment's allocation, pacing or manager list that you cannot verify. MIT's release, for example, did not publish any of those, and Stanford's and Penn's announcements gave returns and values rather than commitments. Leave out comparisons that rank one endowment against another, since a CIO will not welcome being benchmarked by a stranger. And leave out praise that you would not give to a manager you respect.

What to watch next

Additional endowments will publish fiscal 2026 results in the coming weeks. Each is a new reason to write, and each should get its own note rather than a template. FundLinx members can see which endowments are active with emerging managers this quarter.

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