Endowments & Foundations

Wurts & Associates has been delivering investment advice to Endowment and Foundation clients since our founding in 1986. Included in our current clientele are private family foundations, community foundations, university endowments, and health care and religious institutions.

Our professionals are committed to understanding the many issues that currently confront these fund sponsors so that they can consistently deliver proactive investment-consulting advice.

Initiated in September 2003, Wurts & Associates began a research effort to identify a top-tier investment program that would meet a 5% spending policy, preserve real purchasing power, and limit volatility over the next ten years, by designing a portfolio with allocations to a diverse set of asset classes. The research was set forth in a paper, titled “Model Endowment & Foundation Portfolio for the Next Ten Years”, which describes the asset allocation strategy for which specific investment products were chosen and documented with the intention of tracking the “model” portfolio's performance over time.

Wurts & Associates will work with the fund sponsor to evaluate the unique aspects of their portfolio such as spending requirements, cash flow needs, socially responsible criteria and alternative investments.

Spending Policy

The spending policy represents a tradeoff between current expenditures and the growth of assets for future expenditures. Key issues surrounding the investment policy include: What is the most appropriate spending policy given expected capital market performance? How should this spending policy be calculated to minimize payout volatility?

Cash Flow Needs

Wurts & Associates has worked with a number of liquidating private foundations seeking to spend down fund balances in an effort to achieve the greatest philanthropy in the shortest amount of time. In such instances, our consulting staff will assist the foundation in determining the best allocation and liquidation strategies based upon Monte Carlo simulation and scenario testing. Such analysis can also be applied to community foundation donor advised programs.

Socially Responsible Investing

Wurts & Associates has extensive experience in the design and implementation of socially responsible investment programs for a variety of different non-profit institutions. In general, Wurts & Associates believes that SRI will have a minimal impact on long-term portfolio performance versus a non-SRI portfolio. Our manager focus list maintains a sizeable number of firms that can manage socially responsible mandates.

Alternative Investments

Wurts & Associates has been providing investment advice on alternative investments since 1990. Twenty-five of our clients have implemented alternative investment programs ranging from real estate to hedge funds. We have recommended alternative asset classes such as: hedge funds/absolute return; real estate; private equity/venture capital; and private mortgages to our clients.