Council on Foundations
This Council on Foundations report shows there was a 27 percent decrease in the asset values of community foundations in 2008. Data were collected from 200 community foundations in the country, which are about 47 percent of community foundations with assets worth at least $5 million and 60 percent with assets of $25 million or more.
The survey discovered that 52.3 percent of total community foundation assets in 2008 were invested in equities, 25 percent in fixed-income, 20.2 percent in alternative strategies and 2.5 percent in cash. While the document reported the largest decline of community foundations’ equity exposure since 1996 – a 7 percent decrease – it also found large increases in exposures of alternative strategies (such as hedge funds) and international equity. Alternative strategy exposures went from 0.9 percent of total community foundation assets in 1999 to 20.2 percent in 2008, while the exposure of international equity reached 31.5 percent within the past decade.
$60, 184 pages. Monica Wroblewski, Council on Foundations, (703) 879-0678, http://www.cof.org.
