November 5, 1998 | Read Time: 5 minutes
1997 Investment Performance and Practices of Community Foundations
By Charlie Georgalas, Michael A. Miller, and Michael L. Kaufman
Community foundations are increasingly investing their assets in long-term, higher-risk markets, write the authors, and that aggressive approach has paid off handsomely in recent years.
This report solicited financial data from 102 community foundations, all of which hold assets of $5-million or more. The report measures the performance of assets not bound by donor stipulations, and it excludes assets that are invested for short-term gain in order to finance a specific program.
The survey found that assets that meet those “professional management” criteria grew to $11.4-billion in 1997 from $9.5-million in 1996. Those assets stood at $5.9-billion just five years ago, and the median rate of investment return from 1990 to 1997 was 13.5 per cent.
The book provides analysis of investment performance, asset allocation (the largest percentage of which is tied up in equity, or higher-risk, funds), and investment management and practices. Tables note annual rates of return for the foundations and for stock-market performance benchmarks such as the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.
The authors mention none of the foundations by name. Rather, they group them together under such categories as asset size and investment allocation.
Appendixes include a methodology of the study, including the formulas used to determine rates of return, and an alphabetical list of the participating foundations.
Publisher: Council on Foundations, 1828 L Street, N.W., Washington 20036; (202) 466-6512 or (888) 239-5221; fax (202) 785-3926; World-Wide Web http://www.cof.org; 63 pages; $20 for members, $45 for non-members.
Women as Fundraisers: Their Experience in and Influence on an Emerging Profession
Edited by Julie C. Conry
This edition of the quarterly journal New Directions for Philanthropic Fundraising reports on the growing numbers of women who turn to fund-raising careers. Its eight essays outline the opportunities and obstacles that women encounter in a profession that the editor posits is likely to attract even greater numbers of females.
Ms. Conry, director of development at the Ohio State University Health Sciences Center/College of Nursing, begins by noting that women make up majorities in three major professional organizations that represent fund raisers: the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy, the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, and the National Society of Fund Raising Executives. That was not the case 10 years ago, she writes.
Yet in her essay on pay, Ms. Conry finds that gender bias still exists in the fund-raising field. She cites studies that claim that women earn many thousands of dollars less than do their male counterparts in high-ranking development positions. Until employers adhere to gender equity, Ms. Conry writes, women will have to rely on accumulating experience and touting their accomplishments in order to garner wages comparable to those of men.
Other contributors include Sondra Shaw-Hardy, an adjunct professor of public affairs at Western Michigan University, who interviewed five woman fund raisers to get their perspectives on careers in development — and who asked them if they thought women made better fund raisers than did men. And Madelyn M. Levitt, the 73-year-old chair of Drake University’s $190-million capital campaign, gives her 10 “commandments” for successful fund raising.
The series, which is sponsored by the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy, is edited by Dwight F. Burlingame, Timothy L. Seiler, and Eugene R. Tempel.
Publisher: Jossey-Bass, 350 Sansome Street, San Francisco 94104-1310; (415) 433-1767; fax (800) 605-2665; World-Wide Web http://www.josseybass.com; 139 pages; $22 plus $5.50 postage and handling; $67 for a one-year subscription for individuals and $115 for organizations; I.S.B.N. 0-7879-4268-5; I.S.S.N. 1072-172x; ask for PF19.
OTHER PUBLICATIONS
Compensation in Nonprofit Organizations, 11th Edition, by Steven Langer, is a report of a survey of non-profit organizations that gathered salary information and then drew composites of the wage earners. Approximately 1,900 non-profit groups, which employ more than 47,000 people in positions ranging from chief executive officer to nutritionist, responded to the survey. Mr. Langer finds that the highest-paid chief executive officer is likely to lead a group with 1,000 or more employees and to oversee an annual budget of at least $25-million. Some individuals draw salaries as high as $800,000, Mr. Langer reports, but the majority make less than $100,000 — and 25 per cent of chief executives make less than $47,687. Included in the survey are lists of median incomes for 121 other types of jobs that Mr. Langer examines, such as chief financial officers ($56,350) and donor-research managers ($25,850). Publisher: Abbott, Langer & Associates, Department NR, 548 First Street, Crete, Ill. 60417; (708) 672-4200; fax (708) 672-4674; $250.
Privacy and the Family Foundation: The Impact on Grantmaking, by Deanne Stone, examines why wealthy people fear invasions of their privacy and how those attitudes can affect the giving philosophies of their family foundations. Ms. Stone, a writer in Berkeley, Cal., interviewed 44 trustees of unidentified small and medium-sized family foundations in order to gauge the moods and chronicle the giving of those philanthropists who shun the spotlight. She found that family members fear, among other things, a surfeit of grant requests, a betrayal of family confidence by the news media, and even threats to personal safety from poor people. Ms. Stone takes grant makers who hold such reservations to task. “Unless they reach out to the communities they serve, they cannot understand the needs of people whose cultural and economic backgrounds are so different from their own,” she writes, adding that too many family foundations tip most of their giving toward institutions such as symphonies and museums. Ms. Stone concludes that if a family is to start a foundation, it has a responsibility to open itself to all qualified grant applicants, as well as to lines of inquiry from the public. Publisher: Deanne Stone Publications, 2828 Forest Avenue, Berkeley, Cal. 94705; e-mail djstone@citycom.com; phone and fax (510) 848-6289; 49 pages; $12.
