Fidelity and CPG: Helping You Fund Your Future
WINTER 2024
If you’re saving for retirement, pat yourself on the back—and know that we have your back. We work closely with Fidelity Investments, recordkeeper for The Episcopal Church Lay Employees’ Defined Contribution Retirement Plan (Lay DC Plan) and The Episcopal Church Retirement Savings Plan (RSVP). Fidelity offers retirement savings options, financial education, and other tools that can help individuals set and achieve their financial goals for retirement.
The Lay DC Plan is the most popular retirement savings choice among Episcopal employers who have lay professionals on staff. The Lay DC Plan allows participants to make contributions through deductions from their pay on a pre-tax or the newly adopted Roth (after-tax) basis—and employers may contribute to these plans, too. In fact, employers that are subject to the authority of the Church must make a base contribution of at least 5% of the eligible lay employee’s compensation and match employee contributions up to another 4%.
Eligible clergy, and a smaller number of active lay employees, participate in our defined benefit pension plans, but these individuals need to save for retirement, too: Our defined benefit pension plans rarely replace 100% of the income earned while working. We offer the RSVP to those who want to supplement their defined benefit pensions with personal savings.
Taking advantage of these various savings opportunities should help clergy and lay employees of the Church boost their financial security in retirement.
Black History Month—and every month—is a good time to teach our children how to create a better world.
Living God’s Dream uses experiential learning developed in conjunction with the Absalom Jones Center for Living Racial Healing to teach children how to see the image of God in everyone. Field-tested in churches, this five-session curriculum is designed for a variety of settings, including Sunday school, schools, and vacation Bible school.
Pre-order the leader’s guide and the learner’s guide.
Expert Planning, One Tap Away
If you participate in the Lay DC Plan or the RSVP, you have a Fidelity NetBenefits account. Sign in to your account to schedule a session with a Fidelity planning expert. Fidelity advisers are focused on your best interests and will work with you to customize your savings plans.
You may also download the NetBenefits mobile application. The app has the functionality of the Fidelity website and lets you check your account balance, review sources of contributions to your retirement plan, change your savings rate, and update your beneficiaries on the go. You can even schedule a meeting with a Fidelity advisor from the app.
Did You Know?
While you’re on the Fidelity site, take advantage of the articles, videos, and calculators available to you. Sharpening your knowledge about topics like these helps you take charge of your financial future:
- Expenses in retirement, including average healthcare spending
- Inflation and its impact on savings and purchasing power
- Risk of excess withdrawals on retirement savings
- Investing basics, including primers on asset allocation and risk and return
- Longevity risk, including market segmentation by gender
- Social Security and estate planning
- Tools for managing spending, debt, savings, investments, and protection (life insurance)
You also have access to a CPG financial education specialist. Schedule a complimentary meeting to have an experienced financial professional answer your questions
“One of our most important responsibilities as a board is to safeguard the financial strength of the pension plans and other benefits that The Church Pension Fund administers. We must make prudent decisions that protect the financial sustainability of the plan and CPF’s ability to pay pensions over the long term.”
-- Canon Kathryn McCormick
Chair, The Church Pension Fund Board of Trustees
Comments? Questions? Concerns? CPG is listening. Please reach out to us at corpcomm@cpg.org