What's the right size?
The oldest endowment in the West is a scholarship fund established in 1249, at a new school within the University of Oxford, which wasn't all that old itself.
The benefactor was a distinguished "everyman." A childless ecclesiastical scholar. William of Durham. A man of learning. Of values. He traveled more than others. Compassionate. Visionary. A man who knew for sure that a good education costs money.
With his endowment, William of Durham kicked opened a door to the future for a moment and for indefinite centuries to come ... and said, I know how to help. He endowed a scholarship fund, with a will executed in 1249: his endowment insured that smart-minds-born-into-poverty could receive the best education available anywhere on earth. That was William of Durham's bet in 1249. He didn't know what Oxford would become.
What would your bet be right now?
On endowment. On enduring centuries, permanently, until it didn't matter anymore because environmental ecological nature-friendly sanity ultimately against all reasonable odds prevailed. And we didn't kill our planet. Unlikely. But somehow.