National Organizers Alliance’s Pension Plan for Activists: How It Works

Eligibility: People are eligible for coverage if they have at least one year of employment in the social-justice movement and work for a group that belongs to the National Organizers Alliance. Non-profit and for-profit groups involved in social-justice work are eligible to join the alliance.

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Contributions:

Employers must put into the retirement plan an amount equal to at least 5 per cent of each eligible employee’s gross annual compensation. Employees can also contribute a portion of their own wages before taxes are taken out, and employers can choose to match employees’ contributions. In general, the sum of an employer’s contribution, an employee’s own contribution, and the amount the employer pays into the plan to match the employee’s own contribution cannot exceed 25 per cent of an employee’s salary.

Account management: Assets in the plan are held in trust and managed by Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. Employees can choose to put their retirement money in various stock, bond, or money-market funds, including so-called socially conscious funds.

Vesting: Employees may begin to participate in the plan after one year on the job. They earn the right to contributions made in their behalf by their employer after three years of service. (Some employees may be able to count previous employment at social-justice organizations toward their eligibility and vesting.) Employees have an immediate right to any money that they contribute through tax-deferred deductions from their pay. All withdrawals from the retirement account are subject to federal tax laws.

Portability: Employees who join another organization covered by the retirement plan may move their account to the new employer without penalty.

Foundation support: To get the plan off the ground, the following foundations made grants: John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation ($150,000); Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation ($80,000); Unitarian Universalist Veatch Program at Shelter Rock ($75,000); Albert List Foundation ($45,000); Wieboldt Foundation ($40,000); Norman Foundation ($35,000); and the Public Welfare Foundation ($25,000). Several other foundations have contributed to the National Organizers Alliance and its work on the pension program.

For more information: Contact Steven D. White, Pension Administrator, National Organizers Alliance, 715 G Street, S.E., Washington 20003; (202) 543-9530 or (888) 662-7367; e-mail noa@igc.org; World-Wide Web http://www.noacentral.org.