Retirement Plan for National Office and Field Staff Employees of the March of Dimes Foundation

Retirement Plan for National Office and Field Staff Employees of the March of Dimes Foundation

The Retirement Plan for National Office and Field Staff Employees of the March of Dimes Foundation is the tax-deferred 403(b) retirement vehicle for the foundation's workforce. Established as an integral part of the nonprofit's employee benefits structure, the plan operates under the administrative and fiduciary oversight of the foundation's finance leadership in Arlington, Virginia. The plan provides retirement benefits exclusively to employees of the March of Dimes Foundation, a nonprofit organization founded in 1938 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to combat polio and now focused on maternal and infant health. The plan's investment structure is representative of standard nonprofit 403(b) defined-contribution programs. Assets are deployed across a curated menu of core investment options, including mutual funds, fixed annuities, and variable annuities offered through a major recordkeeper. The plan features an employer matching contribution, a standard mechanism for nonprofit retirement plans to incentivize employee participation. The March of Dimes Foundation's finance team, led by CFO David Horne, is charged with monitoring plan investments and ensuring compliance with Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) fiduciary standards. The plan's affiliation with The ERISA Industry Committee (ERIC), where former March of Dimes staffer James Gelfand serves as president, signals active engagement with benefits policy issues. The plan's asset pool is estimated at $117 million (Altss estimate). There is no disclosed direct investment program; the plan accesses capital markets exclusively through commingled vehicles and insurance-company separate accounts. The finance function has interacted with senior financial-sector figures through the March of Dimes Foundation's Board of Advisors, including Ameriprise Financial Chairman and CEO James Cracchiolo and former Executive Vice President Walter S. Berman, though these relationships are historical board affiliations rather than plan-level investment mandates. No dedicated plan investment committee or board has been publicly identified. The plan's structural differentiator is its dual role as both an employee benefit and an expression of the March of Dimes Foundation's institutional values. As a single-employer, single-purpose retirement trust, it avoids the governance complexity of multi-employer plans, but operates with considerably less transparency than public pension funds. The absence of public board minutes or investment policy statements means its asset allocation and fee structures are known only to plan participants and regulators. Succession of fiduciary responsibility rests with the March of Dimes Foundation's executive leadership, creating a governance pipeline tied to the parent charity's organizational stability.