Investment Management Process

Blue Mountain Community Foundation’s core service for our community is acting as a charitable bank. The Foundation is the place that individuals, businesses, and other nonprofits can place money that they want to be dedicated to supporting nonprofits and charitable work. The Foundation can manage this money for the short-term or the long-term and distribute the money however the donors who put the money in the “bank” want us to distribute it.

Central to our role as our community’s charitable bank is investment management. This is because most of the money put here is money that people or organizations want to exist as perpetual endowments. As of the third quarter of 2021, the Foundation was managing nearly $60 million. We take this job very seriously and have created a robust and deeply experienced investment management program. The primary goal of our investment program is to obtain top-quartile investment returns for the charitable dollars that we are managing for our community.

Our Board of Trustees has ultimate oversight over our investment program. However, the day-to-day management of our investments is in the hands of three different investment management companies: BNY Mellon (our main investment manager); Baker Boyer Asset Management; and Edward Jones. These experts operate under the oversight of our staff and our Investment Committee, which is composed of investment professionals and knowledgeable community members. All of our investments are managed under our Investment Policy Statement, which you can see by clicking here.

We are happy to consider hiring additional investment managers if a donor or organization would prefer for us to do so. The only criteria is that an investment manager that we work with must manage at least $250,000 for the Foundation. You can see our Alternative Investment Manager Policy by clicking here.