Investment Management

The overall investment management goal of The Erie Community Foundation is to preserve and enhance the charitable purchasing power of endowed funds over time. To accomplish this, we retain an independent investment consulting firm who works with our finance committee to establish an investment policy. Click here for a copy of our investment policy statement.

This policy statement is designed to provide an average net annual return of 9% or more, over time. Endowed funds typically return 5% to charity. Inflation will average about 3%. Expenses will be about 1%. If endowed funds are not returning 9% or more, over time, they are not maintaining their charitable purchasing power.

The Erie Community Foundation takes its fiduciary responsibilities quite seriously. Endowed funds are pooled for to provide investment management economies of scale and to access products unavailable to smaller individual accounts. All funds within ECF are covered by a single audit and a single 990 form. This approach annually saves hundreds of thousands of dollars that can be re-directed from administrative costs to charitable purposes.