Strong and Secure

Internal controls strong; fiscal position secure. The Community Foundation is committed to financial excellence, which has resulted in favorable opinions from its independent auditors. We also comply with the National Standards for U.S. Community Foundations and maintain our status as a registered 501(c)(3) organization, which you can verify by viewing our IRS Letter of Determination. Together, these efforts have allowed us to build our reputation as a trusted steward of community funds.

Investment Management

We pool and invest your charitable assets to ensure that your fund’s balance grows over time. This provides our region, and other important causes that you support, with more philanthropic capital. Our volunteer Investment Committee oversees this responsibility with well over a century of combined investment experience. This knowledgeable group is appointed by our Board of Directors and meets regularly to assess and re-balance our portfolios.

Outsourced CIO

Our sound investment management practices leverage the expertise of Russell Investments. With decades of nonprofit investing focused on foundations, Russell Investments provides our Investment Committee with high-quality advice, techniques, monitoring and reporting. Working with them also allows the Foundation to integrate strategic planning, investment implementation and administration into a custom investment solution that meets the needs of our organization and fundholders.

Overview of Fees & Policies

Philanthropic Services Fee

The Community Foundation makes giving simple and personally fulfilling by managing your fund and providing a wide array of high-quality philanthropic services. To provide these valuable benefits, our Board of Directors implemented a sliding-scale service fee on all funds to help defray the costs. These fees cover grantmaking, record keeping, annual audits, tax filings, fund statements, insurance and operating expenses. Scholarships are unique in that we generally charge a two percent service fee to help defray the costs of managing your fund. However, this fee may be reduced in some circumstances.

The sliding-scale fee is adjusted at least quarterly for fund balances that have changed.

Fund Balance                              Fee Rate
$0 – $99,999                                 1.25%*
$100,000 – $499,999                    1.00%
$500,000 – $999,999                    0.90%
$1 million – $1,999,999                 0.80%
$2 million and over                        0.75%

*Minimum fee is $250 per year.

Investment Management Fee

To offset the costs of our investment management platform, the Community Foundation assesses a 60 basis point (.006) annual investment fee on all funds. This fee is in addition to the internal expenses of the pools managed by Russell Investments. The internal expenses are approximately 85 basis points (.0085) annualized. This is standard practice among Community Foundations, and our fee levels remain moderate.