<<Several years ago a $50K charitable fund was established in town to be administered by a committee composed of one rep from each of several civic organizations. Each year they would take applications for grants and distribute the fund's income. The grants were small but managed to help several local projects each year. This year they announced that due to low interest rates, they would not be making any grants. Sounded odd when I read it and today I learned just how odd it is.

It seems that their $50K generated only $800 in interest this year. That's 1.6% for those without a calculator. Now my checking account pays 1% and long term CD's have never gone below 3% at the local banks, so I'm wondering how they could only earn 1.6%.

What makes this really interesting is that the president of the group is also the Republican county chairman and a very vocal supporter of privatizing social security. If he manages his private account like he's managed this fund, the 2% yield of the current SS system will start to look pretty good.
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Frankly, your post sounds fabricated in order to make a political point. That's the way it sounds to me, anyway.

The obvious thing to do is to obtain a copy of the financial report for the organization and see what income, expenses and donations and assets and liabilities are there. Without that information, you are just guessing and supposing without the necessary facts.

Just auditing the finances of such an organization to be sure the money is there are being used for its intended purposes might consumer a significant amount of the annual income. Such an organization would probably have liability insurance to protect the officer and directors as well, costing yet more money. Those are just two likely expenses.



Seattle Pioneer