The Permanent Endowment Research Project was initiated in 1981 to develop an endowment program to create a guaranteed outcome of perpetually multiplying funding for families and/or for 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 inter-generational 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 significance of this waste of human economic value to society and developed the Permanent Endowment Program to mitigate this economic loss to society. A planning program was 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 inter-generational component of the perpetually multiplying endowment funding.
The Permanent Endowment Program that was developed provides productive individuals with a process for achieving Personal Significance by creating perpetually multiplying funding for 501 (c) 3 non-profit organizations that supported 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 at 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.