When we wrote to our donor-advised and endowment fundholders last fall about our plans for a comprehensive evaluation of our investment partnership relationship and survey of the competitive landscape, we had high aspirations for the Request for Proposals (RFP) process upon which we were about to embark.
Based on feedback gathered from our fundholders in recent years through surveys and conversations as well as input from our Investment Committee and Board of Trustees, our highest priorities in this search were to identify an investment partner with a track record of strong investment return performance; the ability to provide robust and detailed quarterly performance reporting for Rose Community Foundation and our fundholders; and proven experience with mission- and values-aligned investing.
We are excited to share that we have selected global investment firm Cambridge Associates as our new outsourced chief investment officer (OCIO). Cambridge Associates will be responsible for managing custom strategies for the Foundation’s investment pools, designed to support our efforts to grow and advance values-driven philanthropy across the Greater Denver region.
Cambridge Associates has built institutional-quality portfolios with some of the most renowned endowments and foundations across the country for more than 50 years. We believe that working with them as our OCIO will play to their strengths – namely, overseeing the strategic construction of our investment portfolio, finding and accessing best-in-class managers, and maximizing long-term performance with appropriate levels of risk – all to make more philanthropic capital available for charitable purposes. One of the factors that set Cambridge Associates apart from other firms is its longstanding history of helping clients integrate values and specific mission and impact objectives into investment strategies without making concessions on returns.
We are thankful to our previous advisor’s work in helping us get to this point and are optimistic about taking our investment strategy to the next level as we enter this new partnership. Thank you to our donor-advised and nonprofit fundholders for the trust you place in us to steward your philanthropic assets.