Investing in our community

By Michelle Payne / Vice President of Finance

It’s safe to say that the Quad Cities Community Foundation loves to celebrate the generosity of donors and the transformational grants their gifts make possible—and for good reason! This past year, donors gave more than $19 million to support the communities and causes they care about, and we granted $11 million out to nonprofits across the Quad Cities. Talk about cause for celebration! 

“Gifts in” and “grants out” doesn’t tell the whole story, though. As the Community Foundation’s vice president of finance, I get a view not as widely known into what happens between those two exciting moments—how we nurture our assets through intentional investing with the goal of maximizing the resources we can put back out into the region each year.

When you think of investments, maybe your mind goes straight to spreadsheets and bar charts. (I know mine does!) And yes, those are very important tools, especially in the hands of our Investment Committee, a group of highly skilled local professionals chaired by Kent Pilcher, president of Estes Construction and vice chair of the Community Foundation’s board of directors. The committee meets regularly to analyze our five investment pools and ensure that they continue to adhere to the Community Foundation’s investment policy while performing in line with or above benchmark.

Thanks to the committee’s guidance, I’m pleased to report that 2021 was a great year for the Community Foundation’s investments. Overall, our investments earned a 12.6 percent return last year, beating the market benchmark of 11.2 percent. Even more, over the last three years they earned a 13.3 percent return against a 7.6 percent benchmark. Meanwhile, in 2021 our Long-Term Pool, which holds almost half of our $192+ million in invested assets, earned a 13.5 percent rate of return, coming in above a 12.6 percent benchmark.  

Strong investment performance is a win for everyone as it directly translates into more dollars available to support work that transforms the region.

Those results also reflect another kind of investment we make on behalf of our community: the investment of care and diligence in making wise decisions with the gifts entrusted to us. That extends to how we pool our investments to diversify our portfolio, reduce risk, and keep fees low—just 0.16 percent for our Long-Term Pool, down from over 1 percent a few short years ago. Lowering these expenses is one more way we ensure that as many dollars as possible go out into our community every year.  

By the time those dollars go out in the form of grants, we’ve also invested the time and energy to deeply understand area needs and opportunities and to forge relationships with nonprofits and local leaders, all so that donors’ gifts can do everything they hoped and more—and so that together, we see a greater return for our community.  

Ultimately, all of the Community Foundation’s work—from the funds and gifts we facilitate to our grantmaking programs, our scholarships, and beyond—represents an investment in the future of the Quad Cities region. And if we spend a lot of time celebrating all the good that goes on here, that’s an investment we make, too, as we believe it will inspire more generous people to help make that future even more vibrant.  

So, this morning, I hope you’ll consider how you can invest in the things you want to see grow in your community and how you can do that at the Community Foundation. Whether you put in time, talent, or treasure, what you do today will shape what we can do tomorrow—and that’s worth a lot.