Eijk and Rose-Marie van Otterloo
A major matching gift of USD 13 million from long-term UWC supporters and philanthropists Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo helped to launch the UWC Global Endowment in 2024.
Created solely to support scholarships, the Endowment will enable more students from under-resourced backgrounds to study at UWC schools and colleges in the years ahead. The van Otterloos’ commitment is structured as a 50% match on eligible gifts, aiming to unlock USD 26 million in new endowment commitments by December 2025. This encourages further giving from UWC alumni, parents and friends and is helping seven UWC schools and colleges, as well as UWC International, to launch or strengthen their own endowments.
Rose-Marie and Eijk were honoured with the UWC Awards for Peace and Sustainability in Education at the UWC International 60th Anniversary Gala in New York City in May 2023. Their involvement with UWC spans many years, and they have provided remarkable support to several UWC schools and colleges including UWC Maastricht, UWC Mostar and UWC Costa Rica. Eijk van Otterloo previously served as a member of the UWC International Board.
The UWC Global Endowment is essential to ensuring that this movement can live up to its founding promise: to bring together exceptional young people from all backgrounds and empower them to shape a more peaceful world. Rose-Marie and I created the matching challenge to help accelerate that effort, to build lasting resources so that need, not wealth, determines opportunity. As the match continues through to December 2025, we hope others across the UWC community will join us in strengthening the UWC Global Endowment. Every gift makes a difference, and we are deeply grateful to all who have contributed so far.