The Permanent Endowment Research Project was initiated in 1981 to create an endowment program to multiply surplus savings accumulated by productive individuals who had participated in the capital accumulation planning program developed from findings of the Economics of Life Research Project. The goal was to create a guaranteed outcome of perpetually multiplying endowment funding for donors’ family members and/or for personal value systems through 501 (c) 3 non-profit organizations. The two questions the Permanent Endowment Research Project sought to answer were: 1. Is there a way that productive individuals could perpetually multiply savings not needed to finance lifestyle costs through their life expectancies to support values that were important to them, to their families, and to society? 2. Could a planning program be created that could maximize the efficiency, control, and safety of the intergenerational multiplication of these surplus savings for the benefit of productive individuals’ families and for the benefit of 501 (c) 3 non-profit organizations that perpetuated value systems of importance to the productive individual, to their families, and to society?
Un-monetized human economic value is a wasted human resource. Findings of the Permanent Endowment Research Project identified the magnitude of this waste of human economic value to society and developed the Permanent Endowment Program to mitigate this economic loss. A planning program was then developed to monetize the human economic value asset.
The Permanent Endowment Program that was created from the research was based upon fundamental realities of human existence: 1. that all human beings are mortal, 2. that human economic value is quantifiable, and 3. that human economic value could be monetized by life insurance companies. In addition, an administrative program was designed to manage the intergenerational component of the perpetually multiplying endowment funding.
The Permanent Endowment Program that was developed provides productive individuals access to a process for achieving Personal Significance by creating perpetually multiplying funding for 501 (c) 3 non-profit organizations that support values of importance to them, to their families, and to society.
Beginning in the mid 1980’s, Permanent Endowment Program pilot projects were implemented by the research project for a number of 501 (c) (3) non-profit organizations. Productive individuals and affluent individuals participating in the Economics of Life Research Project funded pilot project Permanent Endowment Programs at Loma Linda University School of Medicine, Concordia University (Irvine), University of Nevada at Las Vegas, Brigham Young University, Idaho State University, and Virginia Commonwealth University-Medical College of Virginia. In addition, productive individuals who were participants in the Economics of Life Research Project also funded global pilot project Permanent Endowment Programs for church related schools in Russia, and for medical clinics in the Philippines, in India, and in other parts of the world.
Currently, the Progress Project is deploying the Permanent Endowment Program as a component of the New Economic Order Planning Program to mitigate the post-Great Recession endowment losses of 501 (c) 3 non-profit organizations. The New Economic Order Planning Program plans to create 8300 Permanent Endowment Programs for un-endowed 501 (c) 3 non-profit organizations over the next 5 years.