Boston Foundation applauds signing of nonprofit retirement bill

New law creates retirement plan options for tens of thousands of workers at small nonprofits in Massachusetts

March 21, 2012

Contact:  Ted McEnroe 617-338-3890

Boston – Boston Foundation President and CEO Paul S. Grogan praised a new bill signed into law today that enables workers at small nonprofit organizations in Massachusetts to join defined contribution plans that will be created specifically for nonprofit workers.
 
The legislation makes it possible for workers at nonprofits with 20 employees or fewer to join the plans, which the law authorizes the State Treasurer’s office to create and oversee.
 
“Thousands of nonprofit workers have been living without the opportunity to adequately save for their retirement,” said Grogan. “This law gives these workers, whose modest salaries often do not reflect all they do for our communities, access to retirement options that their organizations otherwise could not afford.”
 
Researchers estimate at least 25,000 nonprofit workers in Massachusetts would be eligible for the new plans when they are created. A 2009 Boston Foundation report, “ For the Benefit of Our Workers ,” found that fewer than half of the state’s smallest nonprofits offered retirement benefits to their employees.

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The Boston Foundation, Greater Boston’s community foundation, is one of the oldest and largest community foundations in the nation, with net assets of $850 million.  In 2011, the Foundation and its donors made almost $78 million in grants to nonprofit organizations and received gifts of $81 million. The Foundation is made up of some 850 separate charitable funds established by donors either for the general benefit of the community or for special purposes. The Boston Foundation also serves as a major civic leader, provider of information, convener and sponsor of special initiatives designed to address the community’s and region’s most pressing challenges.  For more information about the Boston Foundation, visit www.tbf.org or call 617-338-1700.