Every dollar answers to someone.
Nonprofits sit under scrutiny most employers never face — a volunteer board carrying fiduciary duty, a finance committee reviewing each expense, an annual audit, and a Form 990 that anyone can read. Plan fees and plan process are part of that record.
We serve as 3(38) investment fiduciary and give your committee what the role actually requires: benchmarking, an investment policy statement, and minutes. Then we design a plan that helps you keep the people who took a below-market salary to work there.
Four things a nonprofit plan has to do.
When you can’t win on salary, a meaningful employer contribution with fast vesting is what keeps tenured people.
Documented fiduciary process, benchmarking, and minutes that answer the audit and the 990 without a scramble.
Transparent, benchmarked fees you can show a funder, a donor, or a reporter without qualification.
We model both — universal availability, the 15-year catch-up, ERISA status — and give you one recommendation.
What trips up nonprofit plans.
Volunteer committees inherit plans nobody documented. These are the gaps we find.
An investment policy statement is the first thing an auditor or a plaintiff asks for. Many plans have never had one.
Board members act as plan fiduciaries without being told. A charter, written delegation, and training close that exposure.
Older 403(b) arrangements carry surrender charges and individual contracts that quietly block consolidation.
403(b) plans must offer deferrals to nearly every employee. Excluding part-timers is the most common failure we see.
The levers we pull for nonprofits.
Move legacy contracts and orphan accounts onto a single benchmarked platform with one service model.
A straightforward employer contribution that vests fast reads as respect — and costs less than turnover.
A committee charter, delegated authority in writing, and a meeting calendar with prepared materials.
Handing your board a fiduciary file, not a folder of statements.
The board keeps ultimate responsibility, so we make it easy to discharge: an investment policy statement, quarterly monitoring against it, an annual fee benchmark against comparable plans, minutes drafted for you, and 3(38) delegation in writing. When an auditor or a new board chair asks how the investments were chosen, the answer is a document rather than a memory.
From first call to a plan that runs itself.
Staff guidance included, not billed hourly.
Group education, one-on-one meetings at no cost to the organization or the employee, and TrailGuide for staff below traditional wealth minimums.
See how we support participantsOther industries we serve.
Give your committee something to approve.
Send your current plan documents and we’ll return a benchmarking summary and a design recommendation your board can act on.