ABSTRACT
An endowment is a fund that maintains a bulk sum of money as principal and only disburses the income earned on that amount (IPG, 1995). Only under specific circumstances can the capital (corpus) of an endowment be invaded. The Mexican Fund for Nature Conservation (FMCN) is an endowment whose one main objective is to support and strengthen the capacity of Mexican NGOs through mid-and longterm financing of initiatives for conservation and sustainable naturalresource use. The initial capital of the fund was US$36 million in 1994, including US$16 million granted by the GEF for protected area management and US$20 million from USAID for sustainable development (ECOFONDO, 1996).
