State’s Nonprofit Retirement Plan Celebrates Enrollment Milestone

The Massachusetts Defined Contribution CORE Plan enrolled its 200th organization, and now provides retirement benefits for over 1,900 employees in the state.

BOSTON – On Monday, May 20th, the Office of the State Treasurer and Receiver General celebrated a key milestone for its CORE program – the program now has 200 enrolled organizations.

Launched in 2017, the CORE Plan was the first state-facilitated plan of its kind in the United States. The CORE Plan helps Massachusetts nonprofit employees save and invest for a financially secure retirement. The plan is a state-of-the-art multiple employer 401k retirement plan designed specifically for the nonprofit sector in Massachusetts.

“I am very excited about this key milestone in the CORE Plan’s success,” said State Treasurer Deborah B. Goldberg. “Nonprofit workers contribute so much to their communities, and we are thrilled to provide them with great retirement savings options so they can have the secure financial futures they deserve.”

The structure of the plan allows each adopting organization to join under one plan and trust, while the Office of the State Treasurer and its partner Empower assume most administrative responsibilities. Nearly 85% of employers adopting the CORE Plan are start-ups, meaning they did not offer any retirement benefits outside of Social Security prior to adopting the CORE Plan.

For many of Massachusetts’ nonprofit organizations, the cost and resources required to administer an in-house retirement plan can create prohibitive challenges. This is especially true for smaller nonprofits with fewer employees, making the CORE Plan an essential offering from the state.

“I knew firsthand the value of having good retirement benefits, and wanted to find a plan that we could offer to our staff. As a very small nonprofit, there were not many affordable options, and I started to think that it would not be possible to secure a good plan,” said Carol Knox, former Board President for BalletRox. “Imagine my surprise when I received an announcement about the new CORE plan! It seemed tailored made for our situation, offering simplicity, a good benefit structure, and the backing of the Commonwealth. Within days we were signing up as the first nonprofit to join the new CORE plan!”

1,900 employees at over 200 small nonprofits are now participating in the CORE Plan, and more than 80% of participating nonprofits are offering employer contributions to bolster their employees’ savings.

Currently, the CORE Plan is only available to nonprofit organizations with 20 or fewer employees. In the years since its creation, Treasurer Goldberg has promoted the expansion of the CORE Plan to ensure all workers in the nonprofit sector, not only those at small nonprofits, have the opportunity to save for retirement through their employer. H.3031 and S.2025, sponsored by Representative Ann-Margaret Ferrante and Senator Joan Lovely, respectively, would allow this expansion. Both bills were co-filed with Treasurer Goldberg and currently sit with the Joint Committee on Ways and Means.

For more information about the CORE Plan, visit https://www.mass.gov/core-plan-for-nonprofits 

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