Trustee Investment Strategy for Endowments and Foundations

This book is written for people who are responsible for the stewardship of endowment fund assets: trustees, governors or directors, members of a Committee, Board of Regents, Court or Council of any entity that has been given assets to generate a return to support some purpose. The entity may be a trust, a charity, a foundation or other ‘not-for-profit’ organization established to fulfill a need, educational, social or cultural, which is a fundamental motivation for giving. Those who have mastered the content of this book should be in a better position to satisfy the requirements of the law in respect of their responsibilities, including recognition of what can be spent and yet sustain an endowment, and better equipped to ask the key questions to help to make the right decisions.

The investment principles described in this book apply to all types and sizes of foundations and endowments, whether they are the largest charities or the smallest family trusts, whether the need is educational, social or cultural, or whether the time horizon is finite or perpetual.This book is about understanding, developing and implementing good policies and practices in investment strategy for endowment funds. Investment strategy is about selecting and combining classes of asset, investment themes and styles of management to create a portfolio that reliably generates spendable investment return to fund the objective of the endowment institution overthe whole of its anticipated life. Strategy, however, involves more than simply combining the prospective return and risk of a number of asset classes. It must be integrated with spending rules, with other sources of income and with policy on non-financial issues such as socially responsible investing.