Health Nonprofits Post Double-Digit ROI

The average return on investments for 85 nonprofit healthcare organizations reviewed by the Commonfund Institute improved to 18.8% in Fiscal Year 2009. It was the best year for investments in nearly a decade.

The Commonfund Benchmarks Study of Healthcare Organizations results for FY2009 represent a dramatic improvement over average losses of -21.2% reported for FY2008.

The 2009 return was the highest in the eight years the study has been conducted, and came in the year following the poorest return of the eight studies. The 85 participating organizations represented $76.8 billion in investable assets and $26.8 billion in defined benefit plan assets as of Dec. 31, 2009.

Investable assets include endowment and foundation funds, funded depreciation, working capital and other separately treated assets.

For the previous three years, nonprofits in the study reported average annual returns on their investable assets of -0.2%, while for the past five years participants reported average annual returns of 3.5%.