The non-profit fiduciaries’ handbook: A snapshot

We're excited to share the new digital non-profit fiduciaries' handbook! This handbook is designed to help non-profit fiduciaries effectively oversee their investment programs and achieve their mission-driven goals—with the support of an outsourced chief investment officer (OCIO) provider.

There are three sections to this guide.

The first section focuses on setting up a robust governance structure.

These are the foundational decisions that drive how your investment program operates. This section will help you determine how your organization's fiduciary governance structure is organized, and which decisions to delegate or to retain. You don't need to do it all, but you do need to know who is best equipped to do it. We'll illustrate these key decisions with a fiduciary roadmap, which walks you through the hierarchy of decisions that fiduciaries must make as they run their investment programs.

The second section covers designing your investment program.

This section will walk you through the process of building your strategic asset allocation by combining several essential elements. We'll help you nail down your investment beliefs (including your beliefs around responsible investing), as well as four key levers: your spending policy, liquidity requirements, risk tolerance and desired investment time horizon. These decisions are critical to ensuring that your investment program is aligned with your organization's financial goals and objectives. We'll then help you decide which of these levers is most important to you and how to manage the other levers accordingly, and how these dovetail with your provider's capital market insights. Regardless of the path you choose, all these components are closely intertwined and work together to drive your strategic asset allocation.

The third section provides tips on how to effectively build and oversee your outcome-oriented portfolio.

Finally, we'll share tips on overseeing your investment portfolio. This means working with your provider to find the right implementation options, portfolio management strategies, managers and provider to prime your portfolio for investment success. We'll address how to evaluate your investment portfolio's risks, which can stem from a variety of sources, and how to measure their potential impact on the broader organization.

Ultimately, we want to help you navigate the process of determining who is responsible for what decision, creating alignment and managing enterprise risk.

As a non-profit fiduciary, you have a critical job that fills a vital role in our society, and we thank you for your service. Our hope is that you will be able to use this guide to effectively manage your investment program and meet your mission-driven goals—whether as part of discussions with your current investment committee or board, or as you onboard staff or new committee members.