Investment Solutions for Charities
Through a disciplined and thoughtful approach, we help our charity clients invest their capital in a manner that supports their long-term financial obligations as well as their goals for their communities and for society at large.
Many charities seek our multi-asset investment capabilities where we design a bespoke portfolio that will meet their income and other long-term requirements. We build portfolios using individual equities and bonds alongside our own strategies and specialist external managers.
Some clients also come to Brown Advisory looking for exposure to a single asset class. We have a broad range of equity and fixed income expertise, including global and regional strategies. More information on our strategies can be found here.
In addition, we can support our clients with investment policy review, strategic advice, and guidance on sustainable and mission-aligned investing.
Get in touch to find out more about how we partner with charities.
Managing Investments
Drawing on decades of experience working with charities, endowments and foundations, we partner with clients to help them navigate the complexities of global capital markets in pursuit of desired investment returns over the long term.
Our dedicated investment teams are supported by Brown Advisory’s robust research capabilities. We use a combination of internally and externally managed strategies and leverage Brown Advisory’s equity, fixed income, private equity and alternatives research teams to source high-conviction ideas across the investable universe and construct portfolios that can deliver over the long term.
We appreciate the differences between the charities we look after and all of our multi-asset portfolios are bespoke. We spend time learning about our clients to ensure they receive the highest level of service and advice.
Mission-Aligned Investing
Many charities struggle to reconcile two equally important goals when deploying capital: maximising the return of their investment portfolio and progress towards their mission.
Brown Advisory believes that a thoughtful, sustainable investment approach can bridge the gap between these objectives and help organisations achieve both their financial and mission-related goals within a unified portfolio strategy.
For decades, Brown Advisory has worked with clients, both religious and secular, to develop mission-based and sustainable investment portfolios. As long term, performance-first investors, we consider any information that may present a challenge or opportunity for an investment - this includes a wide variety of both quantitative and qualitative information, including fundamental as well as sustainability-related research.
Engagement and Stewardship
We seek to partner with and learn from investor groups and NGOs to help understand and address sustainability-related challenges and opportunities.
As stewards of our clients’ capital and with a performance-first mindset, we believe that it is important to draw from a wide range of sources to inform our understanding of various sustainability-related issues that may affect the investments we make. Brown Advisory is a member of a number of industry groups that help us to develop our understanding of these issues either through providing access to subject matter experts or through helping to facilitate opportunities for us to engage with our investments to further our understanding of the company or other issuer.
Brown Advisory is a signatory of the U.K. Stewardship Code, reflecting our deep commitment to our clients, colleagues and communities. To read more about our stewardship efforts, including examples of engagement activity, please see our report.
Community Engagement
Our Purpose: We exist to raise the future for and with our clients, our colleagues, and our communities.
We think about making an impact broadly—we use the term 'raise the future' to refer to how we view our purpose for our clients, colleagues and communities.
Brown Advisory is distinctive in many ways. Our ownership structure—where every full-time colleague is an equity owner—creates a remarkably entrepreneurial, accountable culture. This accountability serves our clients and our broader communities. We intentionally recruit colleagues who share our values around making an impact. In fact, one of our criteria for promotion to Principal and Partner is the energy and leadership that colleagues demonstrate in their communities. At last count, Brown Advisory colleagues served over 400 charities and nonprofits globally.
Why Brown Advisory for Charities?
- Independent, Client-First | Every employee of Brown Advisory is a shareholder in the business, enabling us to attract and retain talented professionals. This results in low staff turnover and ensures an alignment of interests with our clients over multiple decades.
- Investment Performance | We foster a strong investment culture backed by a well-resourced team who perform rigorous, bottom-up investment research. We develop bespoke multi-asset portfolios and invest with conviction to meet our clients’ specific objectives over the long term.
- Culture | We have a deep-rooted sense of responsibility that aligns with our purpose, and as a group of colleagues, we support over 400 charities globally through funding, volunteering, trustee work and engagement.
