The stock market rebound has led to some cautious optimism from the Cleveland Foundation. So far in 2009, assets are up $100 million. It’s still a bit of a roller coaster, but starting to stabilize, according to Bob Eckardt, a senior Vice President at the Foundation.
ECKARDT: The good news is that any market improvement will help negate some of the downturn from how bad 2008 was.
But the foundation calculates its giving based on an average of the last 12 quarters.
Because of that formula, there’s still a lot of concern about potentially lower giving in 2011 and 2012.
ECKARDT: You’re going to be replacing high performing quarters from three years ago with less highly performing quarters.
So even if the stock market continues its winning streak, it could be quite a while before its effect is really felt among grant recipients.
Meanwhile, the other big nonprofit in town, the George Gund Foundation, says it’s up about $20 million since the beginning of the year.
That’s a start at bringing back the endowment, which lost $200 million dollars – or a third of its value - in 2008. The Gund Foundation says it’s trying to be as responsive as it can given the difficulties facing the nonprofit community.
Both the Gund Foundation and the Cleveland Foundation help fund ideastream.