Fresno State Foundation under scrutiny for how it manages $250M+. Who’s in charge?

The Fresno State Foundation on Friday came under public scrutiny as a state review of the organization’s financial practices found it was opened up to potential fraud.

But what exactly is the Fresno State Foundation? What does it do, and who runs it?

In simple terms, the foundation is a nonprofit corporation that, while operating independently of the public university, manages Fresno State’s $250 million endowment fund — which is the third largest in the California State University system.

The money comes from donations to the university and investments managed by the foundation. It also manages about $65 million in government grants for Fresno State. The foundation redistributes money to pay for research at Fresno State, student scholarships, employee salary support and other important initiatives.

For a long time, the foundation was run by Debbie Adishian-Astone, a former university administrator who served as the nonprofit’s executive director, alongside a 25-member board of governors.

A CSU system review of the foundation’s practices during the 2024 fiscal year, requested by Fresno State President Saúl Jiménez-Sandoval, found the organization’s governance and financial controls increased its “exposure to financial misstatement and fraud.”

The 32-page report said actions required to improve the foundation’s standing include revising the composition of its board.

The CSU review found no instances of fraud in its review, which examined operations during the 2024 fiscal year. That time period covers July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024, according to Fresno State. Adishian-Astone retired from Fresno State at the end of 2024.

Who runs the Fresno State Foundation?

Today, Fresno State Vice President Brady Crook is listed online as the foundation’s executive director. He replaced Adishian-Astone, who was Fresno State’s vice president of administration and chief financial officer from 2016-2024.

She worked at the university for decades before becoming one its head administrators. Adishian-Astone was involved in the development of Campus Pointe and was in charge of the Save Mart Center. She also ran the Fresno State Athletic Corporation and the Fresno State Association, which is tasked with managing certain campus facilities.

Having been in charge of Fresno State’s Title IX office during a drawn-out sexual harassment scandal, Adishian-Astone retired at the end of 2024 and is now listed online as a special assistant to San José State’s president.

Before leaving Fresno, she became the foundation’s executive director in 2009, according to the university. The Foundation’s board includes Jiménez-Sandoval, the university’s president since 2021. During the year reviewed by the state, he was the only member of the board who actually worked for the university, the review found.

The board today is chaired by Vinci Ricchiuti, who is from a prominent Fresno farming family. Its vice chair is Dr. Eric Hanson, an orthopedic surgeon.

According to the review, the board has long operated with low turnover. In 2024, its longest-serving member had been on the board for 30 years.

The review found cases where “the same person” prepared and approved multi-million-dollar transfers and was granted administrator access to a system that gave the person the ability to revise vendor records.

But the audit does not name who the person was.

Fresno State Foundation controls hundreds of millions for university

The foundation was created in 1931 to provide “services and support of (Fresno State’s) mission and goals,” according to its webpage.

Technically, its finances are audited every year by Fresno-based Moore Grider & Company.

According to a Fresno State report, the foundation “manages financial activities” related to philanthropy, endowments, gifts, research grants and campus program trust accounts, among other responsibilities.

Though Fresno State is mostly funded by state money and student tuition and fees, its operations are also supported by its $250 million endowment. The university raised $39 million from donations in 2024, which was a $10 million increase from the year prior, according to the report.

According to the foundation’s 2024-2025 budget report, that year the organization provided $24.7 million in financial support to Fresno State “through scholarships, program support, and special projects.”

This story has been updated with the correct year Adishian-Astone became the foundation’s executive director and the fiscal year covered during the foundation’s review.

This story was originally published January 9, 2026 at 4:14 PM.

Erik Galicia

The Fresno Bee

Erik is a graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism, where he helped launch an effort to better meet the news needs of Spanish-speaking immigrants. Before that, he served as editor-in-chief of his community college student newspaper, Riverside City College Viewpoints, where he covered the impacts of the Salton Sea’s decline on its adjacent farm worker communities in the Southern California desert. Erik’s work is supported through the California Local News Fellowship program.