Partnering on the Endowments for Impact Challenge
The Reichstein Foundation, Dusseldorp Forum, Besen Family Foundation, Oranges & Sardines Foundation, Northern Rivers Community Foundation and Inner North Community Foundation are proud to be partnering on the Endowments for Impact Challenge.
Historically, Australian trusts and foundations have pursued a dualistic approach to granting and investing, with granting driven by vision, mission and values and investing confined to generating income. In recent years, trusts and foundations have increasingly begun to deploy their investments in pursuit of their missions.
Investment challenges
Many trusts and foundations making this shift rely on external advisors to develop and implement their investment policies and have met challenges in identifying appropriate support, including:
the dominance of advisory business models that favour efficiencies of scale over the flexibility required to accommodate clients’ specific missions and objectives;
differentiating greenwashing from credible responsible investment advice and products; and
the tendency for some investment committees to defer to their advisors, stymying the potential for a robust exchange that draws on trusts and foundations’ unique mandates, relationships and expertise.
To date, trusts and foundations have not tended to work collectively to address these issues and their experience selecting and working with advisors is shared on a limited and informal basis.
A different approach
Drawing on similar models from the UK (the ESG Olympics) and Canada (the Great Canadian ESG Championship), the Endowments for Impact Challenge (EFIC) offers a different approach.
EFIC is a collective, public tendering competition designed to identify, challenge and promote investment practitioners who are most suited and values-aligned to the requirements of investing charitable endowments.
We’re now calling on investment advisors around the country to join the Challenge. Their mission: to reshape the future of charitable endowments through gold-standard responsible investment advice tailored to the needs of the philanthropic sector.
Register your interest in our open tender competition today!
For more information on how to get involved or support the Challenge, please contact us.
