Foundation’s Investment Performance Beats Peers

Posted on February 23, 2011 by Randy Maiers

When donors make gifts to the Community Foundation, or leave us in their will or estate plans, they want the peace of mind knowing that their hard-earned money will be well taken care of.  Lately, we’ve been seeing more and more evidence to show that our Foundation’s Finance Committee is doing an oustanding job of protecting our assets.  In fact, the most recent data from the Council on Foundations in Washington DC, shows that we beat the average return for all of our peer groups in 2010. 

According to a survey of more than 300 community foundations in America, the avg. investment return in 2010 for the year ending 12/31/10 was 12.8%.  Our investment growth was 15.58%.  And on the longer horizon, our investment returns were higher than the average for both the 3 and 5 year periods as well. 

And it isn’t just other communtiy foundations in America we are outperforming.  For the 12 months ending June 30, 2010, some of the largest colleges and universities in America had average investment returns of 11.9%.  Our investment return for the same time period was just over 14%, besting some names like the University of Michigan (9.4%), Harvard (5.4%) and Stanford (9.8%).

We don’t have a complicated investment philosophy.  We didn’t make radical changes after the market collapse of 2008.  In the really big years we won’t match the market highs, but in the really bad years (2008) we won’t match the market lows either.  Our donors want consistency.  They want to trust us to manage their charitble assets with care.  With just under $32,000,000 in assets today, the Community Foundation is taking good care of their gifts.