Tracking the Investment Performance of Private Foundations, One Foundation at a Time

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How Are Foundations Doing? July 2019 Topic: Is Bigger Really Better?

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Once a month, FoundationAdvocate selects one topic in foundation-investment performance to highlight.  This month’s topic is the relationship between a foundation’s total assets and its performance. The chart below shows the performance of two subsets of foundations, those with assets between $1-$2 million and those with over $500 million. As you can see from the … [Read more...] about How Are Foundations Doing? July 2019 Topic: Is Bigger Really Better?

FoundationMark 15 Asset Allocation

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The FoundationMark 15 The FoundationMark 15 (“FM 15”) is a selection of 15 of the largest and best-known private foundations in the United States. Most private foundations, like those comprising the FM 15, rely on their investment returns as an important, and, often, their only, source of income to support their philanthropic goals.  To view the performances and full … [Read more...] about FoundationMark 15 Asset Allocation

Giving Has Been Growing

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Charitable Disbursements up 40% in the Past Five Years As the chart below shows, private foundations have increased their annual philanthropic support (green line) by nearly 40%, from $54 billion (FY2013) to $73 billion (Most Recent), an increase of $19 billion per year. Also growing at a rapid pace have been incoming contributions (blue line) with new contributions … [Read more...] about Giving Has Been Growing

Bird’s Eye View: Pennsylvania

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Every month, FoundationAdvocate ("FA") highlights a state by providing a brief overview of its foundations in terms of performance, fees, and asset allocation.  Data on Pennsylvania foundations and other states can also be found at Top Ten.  The opinions expressed are FA's.    Pennsylvania Highlights Better Median Investment Performance Versus Overall Foundation … [Read more...] about Bird’s Eye View: Pennsylvania

Incoming Contributions

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Five Years of Substantial Growth from Incoming Contributions Foundations have two primary sources of asset growth, 1) investment returns, and 2) new contributions.  At FoundationAdvocate, we spend the lion's share of out time focusing on investment returns, but we thought it would be interesting to understand a little more about the incoming contributions. Private … [Read more...] about Incoming Contributions