A Message from the Chair

A Message from the Chair is published after each regular meeting of The Church Pension Fund (CPF) Board of Trustees. It reflects actions taken by the CPF Board that impact the products and services administered by CPF, as well as other highlights of the meeting.

Winter 2024

Dear Friends:

Earlier this month, The Church Pension Fund Board of Trustees (CPF Board) held its final meeting of the year. It was very productive, with thoughtful discussions around a number of important topics of interest to those we serve.

The Benefits team shared the news that The Church Pension Fund (CPF) will be offering an international Employee Assistance Program (EAP) benefit beginning in the first quarter of 2025. The EAP, which is currently available to domestic clergy, lay employees, and their dependents, provides support to help individuals address emotional, physical, family, and legal needs, offering telephonic and face-to-face counseling. The EAP will be available to eligible active and retired clergy within the Convocation of Churches in Europe, participants of the International Clergy Pension Plan (ICPP), and participants of The Church Pension Fund Clergy Pension Plan (Clergy Pension Plan) who are retired outside the US. The benefit comes at no cost to those who use it; it will be available 24/7 and is 100% confidential. The Church Pension Group (CPG) team will provide additional details on this wonderful program early next year.

We discussed CPG’s strategic planning work, including its three-year strategic initiatives, 12-month goals, and an annual budget that will help the organization realize its ambitions. The CPF Board was particularly excited to hear about CPG’s plans to do research and host listening events to forecast future needs and opportunities to serve its clients better. We feel blessed to know the extent to which CPG’s leadership team strives to understand the present and future needs of our Church so they can identify potential new ways to serve.

The Research & Data team provided an engaging presentation on Demographics and the Changing Church. We appreciated the depth of the research and analysis and found the insights particularly helpful in better understanding our evolving Church. Among the highlights were: Episcopal clergy are becoming more diverse; retirements are outpacing ordinations; while congregations with endowments have generally benefitted from strong financial markets, congregations that are solely reliant on “plate and pledge” have seen a decline in revenue; CPG has a large number of lay clients, mostly in larger parishes or in non-parochial organizations such as Episcopal schools; and the impact of changes in our Church on CPG will differ depending on client type and employer.

As we do every December, the CPF Board, after thoughtful discussion, made its cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) decisions and approved a 2.5% COLA to retirees and beneficiaries of the Clergy Pension Plan and certain related clergy plans, as well as the ICPP. However, our analysis of the financial position of The Episcopal Church Lay Employees’ Retirement Plan (Lay DB Plan) did not give us sufficient confidence to grant a COLA for 2025 for this plan. We realize this decision will disappoint lay employees participating in the Lay DB Plan. Still, we also realize how important it is to make prudent decisions that protect the financial sustainability of the Lay DB Plan and CPF’s ability to pay lay pensions over the long term. I encourage you to visit cpg.org/COLA for more details about our decisions.

We received updates on CPF’s corporate social responsibility, including its socially responsible investing program. We also continued our important work on diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Finally, we bid farewell to the Rev. Clayton Crawley, Chief Church Relations Officer, and Nancy Sanborn, Chief Legal Officer, and we welcomed their successors, the Rev. Canon Arlette Benoit Joseph and Julian Chung, to CPG’s Executive Leadership Team. Arlette and Julian will assume the roles held by Clayton and Nancy, respectively, when they retire on December 31.

As we prepare to celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, on behalf of the entire CPF Board, I wish you and your loved ones a blessed Christmas and the very best in the coming new year.

Faithfully,

Canon Anne Vickers 
Chair, The Church Pension Fund Board of Trustees

The next meeting of the CPF Board will be March 12-14, 2025.

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