[Kevin]

Not having a local endowment fund makes it tough on new chapters to get going. A few of us from my chapter have been working on establishing one. Sigma Nu's HQ has a pretty good program. Instead of going off and starting our own fund, our HQ has a Chapter Educational Foundation set up.
We donate money to the 501(c)(3) CEF. A small per diem fee goes to the purposes of the general fraternity. The fund is professionally managed and there's a pretty decent annual income on the investment. We're working right now to endow our LEAD program. After we get sufficient money, we can basically write our own mortgage out of the CEF. We pay the interest and principal for the loan back into our own foundation. I'm sure most everyone has a similar program.

We're also banking on the fact that eventually, the Collegiate Housing and Infrastructure Act will be finally passed.

Having looked at the numbers, in 30 years or so, we can have a pretty respectable amount of money in that foundation, and yes, the cost of membership will be highly subsidized by alumni donations. At this point, I think we're playing catch-up on campus -- at least if the alums of the organizations which have been around a lot longer than us were forward thinking in the least.

I'm sure for chapters which have six-figure social budgets are heavily subsidized by those who came before them.