Building the Community's Charitable Endowment

Since 1928, The Community Foundation has been, in the words of our founders, “encouraging perpetual trusts for charitable and educational uses.” As a result, our community today has a significant philanthropic endowment of over $300 million in more than 800 charitable funds. The Community Foundation’s consistently outstanding investment management, together with a spending rate designed to support the community while preserving the endowment’s real economic value, promise continued growth in the future.

		The Community Foundation’s assets increased from $225 million on January 1, 2009 to$312 million as of December 31, 2010. In 2009-2010, total new gifts and transferswere $43 million while the increase in the value of investments was $69 million. More than $35 million was distributed in 2009-2010 from nearly 800 funds established by gifts, donor bequests, grants and organization endowments.
		The Community Foundation’s investment and spending philosophy are designed to preserve the purchasing power of the endowment over time even after making charitable distributions to the community. The spending rate in 2009-2010, as it has been since 2007, was 5.75% for The Community Foundation’s corporate assets and 5.25% for our Bank of America and Wells Fargo trust assets.
		The Community Foundation’s Corporation once again demonstrated strong investment performance, outperforming market benchmarks. The one-year return for the years ending December 31, 2010 and 2009 was 10.6% and 27.0% respectively. The five year return was 5.1%, and the return since inception (1995) was 8.7%.
		A new and revised affiliation agreement was signed in September 2010 between The Community Foundation and the Valley Community Foundation, strengthening the partnership between the two organizations and extending its term through 2017. Since its founding in 2004, the Valley Community Foundation has attracted 101 funds, including 28 established in 2009-10.
		In the last two years, $26 million has been transferred from nonprofit organizations to The Community Foundation for endowment management. At year-end 2010, The Community Foundation managed nearly $70 million in endowments and endowment-like assets for other local nonprofit organizations. The new organization endowment funds are diverse in size, organizational purpose and geography. Among the funds created by transfers is the New Haven Green Fund, dedicated to environmental issues; the John B. Pierce Foundation and Laboratory Funds; Farmington Canal Rail to Trail Association Fund; and the Milford Fine Arts Council Trust Fund.