From the Chronicle: Small endowments fared better than large ones in 2009

Small endowments According to The Chronicle of Philanthropy, smaller endowments fared better in 2009 than larger endowments. The Chronicle is basing its assertion off a database its staffers created that looked at several hundred nonprofits, their endowed assets and whether they were up or down last year. 

The data is firewalled and subscription content only, but the Chronicle has given The Fundermentalist permission to reprint the data concerning Jewish nonprofits. You can check out the list below, which includes the organization and — based on the Chronicle’s research — the size of its endowment at the end of its 2009 fiscal year and the change it saw from the previous year.

Among the biggest losers from 2008 to 2009 were the Jewish federation in Detroit, which had its endowment dip by 20.8 percent to $288 million, and the UJA-Federation of New York, which saw a 15 percent drop to $695 million. 

The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, on the other hand, was among the bigger winners in 2009, as its endowment grew by 19.5 percent to just over $303 million. 

One thing to bear in mind when looking at the list: Nonprofits end their fiscal years at different times, so some that ended their years early may have seen significant bounce-backs since the time these numbers were filed. For instance, the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, the country’s largest Jewish foundation, is listed here as having approximately $1.7 billion in assets. That would be down more than 30 percent from the previous year, but its fiscal year ends in February, and we know from foundation sources that it has seen a significant recovery and now has more than $2 billion. 

Check out the Chronicle’s entire database. But here is the list of Jewish foundations:

• American Associates Ben-Gurion University of the Negev — $126,273,000, +1.5%
• American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science — $419,268,000, -22.0%
• American Jewish Committee — $67,000,000, +20.0%
• American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee — $303,175,034, +19.5%
• American Society for Technion-Israel Institute of Technology — $167,000,000, +1.5%
• Annenberg Foundation — $1,602,260,949, -20.5%
• The Associated: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore — $354,709,700, -18.4%
• Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston — $475,224,667, -8.2%
• Greater Miami Jewish Federation — $163,804,252, -19.3%
• Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation — $1,771,207,276, -28.6%
• Jewish Community Foundation (Cherry Hill, N.J.) — $16,059,977, +1.4%
• Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles — $49,044,000, +18.0%
• Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County — $87,586,639, -12.3%
• Jewish Federation of South Palm Beach County — $53,671,918, -20.1%
• Jewish Federation/Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago — $620,943,287, -17.2%
• The Jewish Museum, $73,802,127, -17.0%
• National Jewish Health — $72,168,000, -12.0%
• New Israel Fund — $7,585,108, n/a
• North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System Foundation — $27,940,000, +25.5%
• Skoll Foundation — $830,000,000, +12.0%
• Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation — $44,980,021, +16.5%
• United Jewish Appeal-Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York — $694,882,000, -15.9%
• United Jewish Foundation and Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit — $288,871,000, -20.8%
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum — $171,459,804, +26.2%