Investment Vehicles

Investment vehicles for funds differ depending on where they are placed. The New York Community Trust is really two organizations:

1. Community Funds, Inc. is a New York State not-for-profit corporation. Component funds are invested by money managers retained and overseen by our distinguished Investment Committee. Community Funds offers a choice of several investment vehicles to accommodate donors' varied grantmaking patterns:

• For donors who anticipate making grants with a substantial portion of the funds they establish (i.e., spend principal), we offer the Vanguard Prime Money Market Fund.
  
  
• For donors with a longer term orientation, we offer an investment pool of managed accounts in several asset classes overseen by our Investment Committee.
  
  
• For donors who would like a relatively high level of current income, we offer an income-oriented fund of funds managed by Vanguard.
  

2. The New York Community Trust is an unincorporated association of charitable trusts. Each component fund is held in trust with a bank trustee that is a member of our Trustees Committee, and every gift instrument incorporates by reference The Resolution and Declaration of Trust creating "The New York Community Trust" (the R&D).

Funds established as trusts are invested by institutional trustees selected by the donor from our list of trustees that have adopted the R&D. The trustee has sole investment responsibility, although investment performance is monitored by our staff and reviewed by the Investment Committee. Most of our trustee banks require at least $500,000 in order to establish a charitable trust and many have minimums of $1 million or more. Investment fees are typically 1% to 1.25% of the first million.

Community Funds, Inc. and The New York Community Trust share a board and staff and operate as one. They file a combined Form 990 with the Internal Revenue Service.