Investment Consulting Services to Endowments and Foundations
Goal
To help financial leadership effectively manage their investment portfolios and to strategically align the investment plan with their objectives and spending policies.
Services
Foundation and endowment assignments in our experience include charitable semi-public funds, community foundations, private foundations, healthcare foundations and university endowments. Our professional consulting team provides the following client-focused services for endowments and foundations:
- Trustee educational programs on investment policy development and management, asset allocation, investment manager selections, and investment performance analysis,
- Assistance with the development of a formal spending policy for the endowment or foundation
- Evaluation of the endowment or foundation’s investment plan design to assess its alignment with the organization’s goals, spending policies, and risk profile,
- Guidance on the development of investment policies and procedures to support the investment plan structure, including foundation-specific investment: (a) return target(s), (b) risk definition, (c) risk capacity, (d) risk tolerance and (e) targeted time horizon(s),
- Strategic asset allocation modeling to align the risk and return objectives of the organization’s leadership,
- Stress testing of the investment plan to project “what-if” scenarios for interest rate changes or market disruptions and the impact these events may have on the investment portfolio,
- Search for and evaluate additional or replacement investment managers or another custodian bank,
- Investment performance evaluation including compliance with policy guidelines, and
- Comparisons of asset allocation and investment performance against policy benchmark and peer universe.
In addition to special study reports, FiduciaryVest routinely provides quarterly investment market commentary and analysis, along with a comprehensive review and critique of the foundation’s recent and long term investment performance and that of each of its portfolio managers. Also included are specific action-recommendations (or recommendations for no action) in numerous key decision making categories, such as possible replacement of an existing portfolio manager, adjustment to long range investment policy targets, or marginal short term tactical asset allocation changes.