Non-profit higher education institutions (HEIs)’ donors want to insure that their money is used correctly. The agency tensions in non-profit organizations, and specifically in HEIs, can lead to family involvement when families are the donors in the early stage of these organizations. The presence of the founding family can generate benefits like a long-term focus and the avoidance of managerial myopia, the preservation of the foundational goals and mission, and a mitigation of some agency problems depending on the stage of the organization. But family control can also lead to rent-seeking behavior, shifting resources to favor some family members and related parties, and expropriating HEI stakeholders such as students, parents, and faculty, among others. This paper contributes to the corporate governance literature, and specifically to the university governance literature, by highlighting the relevance of good governance provisions, mechanisms and practices in HEIs when the founding-donor family has some level of involvement.