Did your investments work for you?

For the year, 2017 was remarkable in the investment markets, with both stocks and bonds performing well.

The Foundation’s investment options as of December 31, 2017 are summarized below:

COMPARISON OF RATES OF RETURN AS OF DECEMBER 31, 2017

	1 year	3 year	5 year	10 year
BALANCED FUND	17.18%	6.82%	7.92%	5.38%
FIXED INCOME  FUND	5.34%	2.34%	1.47%	4.24%
EQUITY FUND	21.25%	9.16%	12.46%	6.25%

If your church is still living off of CDs this may be a great illustration to get a new conversation going.  What we offer certainly has risks associated with it and may not be right for every church.

But regular readers of this blog know that I’m not concerned with the amount of money in a fund but rather how effective it is as a tool for ministry.  Simply put, a fund that made 21.25% last year provides ministry options that a CD under 1% doesn’t.

I generally recommend a 5% spending policy, which can be calculated a number of ways.  But any of our options provide that 5% with plenty of extra growth to absorb periodic losses.

If this is a conversation you’d like to have, contact the Foundation Office to set up a time for us to meet with the leaders of your church.

And now for the fine print:

• All returns are net of all fees and, other than month and YTD, are annualized
• Historical performance does not guarantee future results
• The East Ohio United Methodist Foundation invested with Wespath in December, 2011.  Historical information prior to that time represents actual Wespath returns, net of hypothetical EOUMF fees.