Despite the dramatic swings in the market during the fourth quarter of its fiscal year, the Catholic Foundation of Eastern Pennsylvania’s investment portfolios outperformed all its benchmarks to outpace both similarly-sized endowments and foundations, as well as larger peers nationally for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2025.
The Catholic Foundation Portfolio Almost Doubles Its Annual Return Goal
The long-term investment portfolio finished up 13.82% versus a 12.05% benchmark, almost doubling its annual return goal of 7%. This was the third consecutive year of positive double-digit returns. Total assets under management (AUM) grew from $43.4M in June 2024 to $55.2M. Two years ago, the Catholic Foundation’s AUM was $30.5M.
“The Catholic Foundation is doing everything right for its Catholic partners,” said Brad Stephan, Managing Director for The Concord Advisory Group. “They have a solid track record featuring a robust institutional investment strategy and a solid governance structure that provides dynamic oversight and reporting processes.
The CFEP portfolio finished up 13.82%, vs. a 12.05% benchmark.
“The performance speaks for itself,” Stephan said. “They are outperforming similar-sized and larger endowment and foundation peers across the country.”
High Peer Universe Comparison
The outperformance Stephan mentions refers to a peer universe comparison sourced through Confluence that Concord provides quarterly. It compares the Catholic Foundation’s trailing returns during various time periods versus returns from similarly sized endowment and foundation peers as well as the broader universe of 1,400 endowment and foundation peers across the United States.
Peer group percentile rankings run from 1-100. “The closer you are to one and the further you are from 100, the better,” Stephan said.
For the fiscal year ending June 30, 2025, the Catholic Foundation was ranked in the 5th percentile, outperforming the median of the peer group, the 50th percentile, by 2.6%.
Tom Scalici, CEO of Cornerstone Advisors Asset Management and Chairman of the Catholic Foundation’s Investment Committee, explained the importance of the peer review and the impact outperformance has for the Catholic Foundation’s partners.
“This peer review allows us to compare ourselves nationally to other organizations with similar investment objectives,” Scalici said. “Outperformance of 2.6% equated to roughly an additional $1.3 million in earnings during the last year. Those earnings are passed on to our endowment partners.”
During the last nine years, the Catholic Foundation peer group ranking was in the 22nd percentile, with annualized returns of 8.6% versus the median return of 7.9%.
“While the annual difference may not seem like much,” Scalici explained. “Compounded over time, we would have earned about 6% more money, or roughly $3.4 million, because of this outperformance. That’s a big difference for our partners.”
Assets grew from $43.4M to $55.2M in one year.
Long-Term Diversified Strategy by the Catholic Foundation
Scalici credits the long-term diversified strategy honed by the Catholic Foundation during the past four years. This year saw further diversification with the addition of two private equity funds: HarbourVest Partners Stewardship Fund and StepStone Climate Fund.
“A superior process should produce superior results over time,” Scalici said. “Our success is a byproduct of the thoughtful decisions we have made managing the assets of the Foundation. “And it’s having a meaningful impact for our partners,” he said. “As our assets grow, it’s helping our parishes, schools and ministries have the income they need to better fulfill their missions.”
