On November 17–18, 2025, the 4th Professional Meeting of Endowment Funds of Kazakhstan took place in Almaty. It was organized by Almaty Technological University and the Aurora-Ala Corporate Fund, with support from the National Center for Higher Education Development of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the National Association of Endowments of Russia.
More than 100 representatives from 26 universities, endowment funds, and management companies from Kazakhstan and Russia participated in the event.
The two-day program focused on practical issues of managing and investing endowment funds, as well as on exchanging experience between Kazakhstani and Russian universities in connection with the entry into force of the Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan "On Endowment Funds."
The meeting's moderators were Svetlana Lavrova, Executive Director of the European University Foundation and Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Aurora-Ala Corporate Fund, and Farkhad Kuanganov, Advisor to the Minister of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
"The increasing response with each meeting demonstrates the dynamics of growing interest in the endowment sector in Kazakhstan: for the first time, we received over one hundred applications for participation not only from funds but also from the financial market. It is also important to note the willingness of many universities to 'test the waters' and the financiers' understanding of both the social and business benefits," notes Svetlana Lavrova.
At the meeting, the Aurora-Ala Corporate Fund and Suleyman Demirel University (SDU) signed a memorandum of cooperation and the launch of a joint educational project.
The general sponsors of the meeting were the investment companies Halyk Finance and Standard.