Background

A community foundation needed to manage its investments by balancing long-term endowment growth with stable, short-term liquidity for local grant-making.

The challenge

Transitioning the foundation’s legacy investment approach from a traditional portfolio to a sustainable strategy, moving away from a model that focused only on financial returns to one that helped the planet and society while still growing over time.

This shift needed to ensure the funds used to generate grant money did not accidentally support industries that harmed the very communities the foundation was trying to protect.

Tracking both financial returns and impact data, to show donors exactly how their sustainable investments were performing.

The goal

Aligning the foundation’s money with its mission, while safeguarding the permanent endowment and optimising returns.

Giving donors visibility of the real-world change their money created, by providing a portal with an impact dashboard.

Strategy & execution 

Working closely with the foundation, we designed and delivered an end-to-end investment and operational model that combined robust governance with a seamless experience for donors and trustees.  

The approach covered four key areas: 

1) Investment

• Designed and managed the default investment options, aligned with the foundation’s sustainable strategy. 

• Provided an outsourced Chief Investment Officer (CIO) / adviser role to support the Investment Committee (IC), including: 

• • Market data and analysis 

• • Impact and sustainability data and analysis 

• • Quarterly IC submissions and presentations 

• Delivered ad hoc support to the IC, adapting the approach as the landscape and trustee/donor demands changed, rather than applying a static model. 

2) Operational

• Built a personalised custody and reporting ecosystem, giving each donor their own portal to view: 

• • Impact and sustainability data 

• • Performance 

• • Transactions, including account-by-account capital raising for donations 

• • Documents, such as quarterly updates and factsheets 

• Managed cashflows on the foundation’s behalf. 

• Delivered data and reporting tailored to the finance team’s needs, significantly reducing their administrative burden. 

• Worked with auditors and remained on hand to support the finance team. 

3) Partnership with stakeholders

• Supported the donor adviser team by helping create marketing documents. 

• Delivered webinars and presentations to donors, potential donors and internal stakeholders. 

• Collaborated on events. 

4) Value added

• Achieved significant operational efficiencies. 

• Improved the donor experience and strengthened potential donor engagement. 

• Empowered the IC to stay ahead of change and adapt as needed. 

Get in touch

If this sounds relevant to a charity you’re involved with, please contact our charity team at charities@eqinvestors.co.uk or call 020 7488 7133. We’d be happy to talk it through.

Please remember, this content is provided for information purposes only. Investment involves risk. Past performance is not a guarantee or indication of future results. Investment return and the principal value of an investment may go up or down and may result in the loss of the amount originally invested. All investors should seek professional advice prior to any investment decision, to determine the risks associated with the investment and its suitability.