The Advantage of Investing as a Community

Philosophy and Strategy

The Armenian Church Endowment Fund (ACEF) combines individual endowment funds and invests them in a broadly diversified, multimillion-dollar portfolio collectively. “Investing as a Community” rather than individually enables ACEF to take advantage of investment opportunities that frankly are not available to smaller investors or individual parishes.

The principal of ACEF funds is never spent, and investment income is distributed to the named beneficiaries at the designated rate of approximately 4.5% per year.

Despite market fluctuations, ACEF has achieved its goal of distributing 4.5% of assets to beneficiaries each year for the last 20 consecutive years.* These monies have been a stable source of funding, helping communities build or repair churches, meet their operating expenses, fund educational programs promoting Armenia’s rich history and heritage, and support many other important initiatives. ACEF is proud to work with its investors to help ensure the future of the Armenian Church.

Please note that if ACEF’s investments generate more than a 4.5% return, this extra income is reinvested. As the size of the investment increases over time, so does the total interest income paid to beneficiaries. Limiting distributions to 4.5% allows ACEF to make distributions in years when the financial markets are down.

Our New Investment Advisor

Bank of America, which brings 25 years of experience working with endowments, foundations and other charitable organizations, is ACEF’s outside consultant, designing solutions tailored to ACEF’s unique investment and philanthropic needs. The size and scale of Bank of America means ACEF will benefit from their broad manager access, transparent and competitive pricing, highly ranked research and technical expertise including access to key economic indicators such as aggregated banking and lending information.

Q & A

Does the Diocese have access to ACEF endowments?

No. ACEF is completely independent of the Diocese. Furthermore, strict regulations and policies ensure that each endowment that is established with ACEF is accounted for separately.

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