Charitable giving is on a lot of people’s minds this time of year. It’s worth noting that while many nonprofits promote great causes, few are great at managing money.

A new research paper looks at the investment returns of a huge sample of nonprofits and finds they’ve been abysmal. From 2009 through 2016, these endowment funds returned an arithmetic average of 6.7% annually, compared with arithmetic averages of 12.2% for U.S. stocks, 10.5% for a 60/40 mix of stocks and bonds, and 8% for U.S. Treasurys, as calculated by the paper’s authors.

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