At the annual OBFS meeting at La Selva Costa Rica, long time board members and field station directors Philippe Cohen and Cindy Stead made a game changing announcement. They have created the Philippe S. Cohen and Cynthia I. Stead OBFS endowment. A percentage of income from their retirement accounts will be bequeathed to OBFS upon their passing. That income will be used to support OBFS programs and operations as determined by a vote of the board; the money can only be used as a true endowment with the finance committee weighing in on the investment portfolio and disbursements. The OBFS board seeded this endowment with $50,000 from the restricted fund and several members stepped up to add to the total including Mary Hufty, Eric Nagy, and Sylvia Torti in addition to Philippe and Cindy.
Philippe and Cindy explain in their own words why they decided now was the time to establish this endowment which helps to bring long term financial stability to OBFS.
Note, they stipulated that the endowment can be renamed only if a donation of greater value (including annual adjustments for inflation) are added to the corpus.