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A Collective Mission
those grants and relies on an annual subsidy from the College to remain “on budget.”
The Foundation’s ability to fulfill its worthy mission thus depends entirely on you. I continue to be so gratified by your past generosity. In 2018, your contributions to the Foundation broke the $300,000 mark for the third consecutive year, setting a new all-time record of $328,489. But we can and must do even better in 2019 and beyond.
For 2019, our College-wide goal for total Foundation gifts is $330,000. It is a high bar, but one we can clear with your help. As of this writing, we remained less than half of the way there. And as you read this column, you either have heard or shortly will hear directly from me or another Foundation officer or director asking that you please make a renewed, increased, or (best of all) new annual gift to support our pro bono mission.
Please include the American College of Bankruptcy Foundation in your year-end charitable giving plans. Although we obviously leave the appropriate level of that giving to each Fellow, we also ask you, if you are an hourly rate professional, to consider contributing at least the dollar equivalent of one hour of your valuable time, or joining our “Four Figure Club” of Fellows donating at least $1,000 to the Foundation.
Whether you have already made your annual contribution to the Foundation or will be doing so before year-end, THANK YOU for your support of those most in need of help in the system.
Ad Hoc Endowment Task Force Good management of your generously donated funds, as well as your annual dues and other revenues, not only requires prudent decision-making regarding grants and other expenditures, but also careful stewardship of funds held at various points by the College and the Foundation. To that end, the College board of directors established an Ad Hoc Endowment Task Force to review and make recommendations regarding the prudent investment, and other guidelines for disposition, of the more than $1.5 million in reserves
accumulated by the College and the Foundation over prior years, as well as any additional such funds that may become available in the future.
Based on the Task Force’s final report, the College and the Foundation appointed a joint committee that recommended the establishment of three new funds: an “operating reserve” holding, for unanticipated operational needs, 33% of the College’s and 50% of the Foundation’s annually budgeted expenses; a “special purpose reserve” holding the amount of budgeted grants to be made in any given year by the Foundation; and a “quasi-endowment fund” intended to produce return on the investment of all other reserved funds, rather than to fund current operations or grants. That joint committee also recommended the adoption of a policy statement regarding the use and investment of each of the three funds and the establishment of a standing Investment Committee to direct and monitor, with the assistance of an outside, professional investment advisor, the investment of all reserved amounts.
The details of those policies are beyond the scope of this column, but the general consensus of the leadership of the College and the Foundation was and remains that the two “reserve” funds should continue to be invested in highly liquid, low-risk “money market” or other similar funds, and that the “quasi-endowment” funds should be invested in a mix of longer-term, growth-oriented, but nonetheless appropriately conservative equity and debt securities, as well as cash and cash equivalents.
This step, taken only after extensive work and hard deliberation, is an important component of ensuring the long-term financial health of the College and Foundation – and ensuring that both can continue to do their important work in the bankruptcy and restructuring community. Please feel free to contact Melissa Kibler, the Treasurer of the College, Marti Kopacz, the Treasurer of the Foundation, or me for further details, or if you have any other questions.
Happy Holidays to all.