The University of Illinois Legacy Fund is an endowment-like tool that will provide ongoing financial support to U of I InterVarsity. Since 2006, InterVarsity has hired over 40 staff from U of I alumni. Even so, each year good candidates cannot be considered because they do not have enough contacts to fund their ministry. Others start with InterVarsity, but their fundraising stalls before it provide long-term support. As the chapters grow in size and diversity, this problem will become more common. The primary use of the Legacy Fund income will be grants that match new ongoing giving. This will give us two strategic opportunities: • Hiring gifted, limited-network staff. Staff candidates from non-Christian backgrounds, rural communities, or ethnic minority communities often need a longer time frame to build networks and raise support. As the campus becomes increasingly diverse and secular, we need to hire and retain staff from these backgrounds to reach the unreached corners of our mission field. • Retaining excellent but under-funded veteran staff. Across the country, large chapters are built, and kept healthy and missional, by long-term veteran staff. We need to be able to keep our best builders at U of I, independent of their own funding networks. We are praying for alumni to start building the Legacy Fund principal with immediate gifts, as well as help provide for the future through planned giving.