Mission
The mission of the YMCA Retirement Fund is to empower YMCA employees to achieve economic security, resulting in loyalty to the YMCA Movement.

Vision
The YMCA Retirement Fund strives to be a results-driven, high quality provider of financial services and education to its three constituent groups: Participants, Retirees and YMCAs as employers.

Values
The YMCA Retirement Fund supports the YMCA values: Caring, Honesty, Respect and Responsibility. We are guided by the principles of Security, Integrity and Enduring Value as we work for the benefit of YMCA employees. We act on behalf of our constituents by being:

• Disciplined long-term investors
• Trustworthy and skilled fiduciaries
• Forthright individuals and team players
• Honest and open communicators

Retirement Fund
The YMCA Retirement Fund is a not-for-profit church pension fund, organized and operated for the purpose of providing retirement and other benefits for employees of YMCAs throughout the United States. Participants elect the Board of Trustees of the Fund that is a separate corporation, not owned by the YMCA of the USA or any individual YMCA.

The Fund sponsors the YMCA Retirement Fund Retirement Plan, which is a defined contribution, money purchase, church pension plan. The Fund also maintains the YMCA Retirement Fund Tax-Deferred Savings Plan, which is a defined contribution, church retirement income account plan. For more information on the two Plans, see the Summary Plan Description.

Benefits are not offset or reduced by participation in any other plan or Social Security. The description of the Plans on this website offer a summary of their provisions, and should any question ever arise about eligibility, benefits, or any other provision, the formal language of the legal plan documents will govern.

The Beginning
The YMCA Retirement Fund was incorporated in 1921 by a special act of the legislature of the State of New York. The Fund’s actuaries estimated that $3,700,000 would be needed to provide for the accrued liability of YMCA professionals already employed and likely to participate. A fund-raising goal of $4 million was set.

YMCA employees were challenged to raise $100,000. They raised $335,000. Dr. John R. Mott, then the General Secretary of the International Committee of the YMCA, secured pledges of $2 million. Included in these pledges was $750,000 (a conditional “matching gift”) from the Laura Spellman-Rockefeller Foundation, acquired with the help of John D. Rockefeller. He added another $250,000 for a total Rockefeller gift of $1 million. Over the next two and a half years, contributions of $2 million were raised from individual YMCAs and other donors to meet the conditions of the Rockefeller contributions.

History Snapshot

1922	$4 million in assets and 3,737 participants
1934	Women first admitted as participants
1937	$17 million in assets and 3,881 participants
1944	$24 million in assets and 7,611 participants
1952	First experience dividends paid to retirees
1957	$58 million in assets and 9,302 participants
1970	First full-time investment director hired
1980	Fund listed as one of 500 largest pension plans
1983	$521 million in assets and 18,892 participants
1989	Savings & Security Plan merged into Retirement Plan
1992	$1.6 billion in assets and 37,151 participants
2004	President signs bill classifying Fund plans as church plans
2005	AYP survey picks start of the Fund as #1 event in Y history
2006	Fund listed as one of 250 largest pension plans
2007	$5.1 billion in assets and 75,262 participants