Market Effects on Foundation Giving Giving USA provides the results of annual surveys (below) which show the historical perspective on foundation giving. One can see that giving is fairly constant, even throughout the financial crisis of 2008, giving fell about 5% from 2007 levels to 2011 before a strong upward trend through 2018, the last survey results which are typically … [Read more...] about Expect a Slowdown in Giving
Fourth Quarter 2019 Performance Round-Up
Each quarter we pull together the published results of three leading measures of foundation performance, the FoundationMark GIV Index, the Northern Trust Foundation and Endowment Universe, and the foundation subgroup of the BNY Mellon U.S. Master Trust Universe. The results are shown in the table and graph below. Periods ended December 31, 2019 … [Read more...] about Fourth Quarter 2019 Performance Round-Up
Everything was Great, Until it Wasn’t
The FoundationMark GIV Index estimates that foundations clocked average performance of 18.8% in 2019, the highest in the past 10 years. Foundation assets topped $1.1 trillion according to our estimates and giving grew over 6%, marking a decade long boom in charitable support. The coronavirus outbreak changed everything. As market turmoil continues, commentary is outdated as … [Read more...] about Everything was Great, Until it Wasn’t
College Endowments Report Fiscal 2019 Returns, and the News Isn’t Good
Autumn is back to school season, and while some people might think about tailgating at football games, there is another competition that takes place on campuses every fall, colleges report their investment returns. While FoundationAdvocate's ("FA") focus is the private foundation universe, we are keenly interested in their nonprofit cousins, college endowments. Unlike most … [Read more...] about College Endowments Report Fiscal 2019 Returns, and the News Isn’t Good
Our Story
How Are Foundations Doing? In many ways, our story is very straightforward. We wanted to know how foundations’ investments were performing. Our background in advising nonprofit organizations on their investments motivated us to want to take a closer look at foundation performance. Specifically, we wanted to know which foundations were doing well from an … [Read more...] about Our Story