Homrich Berg strongly believes not only in being a fiduciary but in working to avoid conflicts by only being paid by our clients. When we make an investment recommendation to you, there is no reason for you to wonder if we are getting paid behind the scenes in a way that would influence our recommendation. Our “same side of the table” mindset is a core value of our firm and has stayed consistent since our founding in 1989.

We believe in aligning your investment game plan according to your organization’s unique needs. We are not a cookie-cutter manager of investments, and our development of your IPS and portfolio allocation will consider the interactive discussion with the Board/Investment Committee at the beginning of our relationship and over time.

Part of our duty to our clients is to ensure that the members of the Board/Investment Committee are kept informed of various topics regarding financial planning and investment management that are relevant to your organization. These include, but are not limited to:

• The latest trends and regulations affecting the non-profit/charitable environment.
• Third-party economic research to aid in financial decision-making by the organization.
• Independent due diligence for investment opportunities that may be brought to the attention of committee members from other relationships.
• Discussions with staff regarding appropriate withdrawal levels and forecasting of future portfolio levels based on current trends and investment allocation.
• Assisting the Foundation with reporting stock gifts and selling the gifts/transferring the funds as desired either into the endowment or into operating funds as requested.

• Fiduciary, fee-only approach – no backdoor incentives, no internal platforms, or products to sell, complete alignment with your best interest, always.
• Experienced service team managing over $2.4B of institutional assets.
• Ability to deliver internally managed portfolio strategies such as active bond ladder and dividend growth stock strategy at no additional cost to the organization.
• Access to private credit, private equity, and real estate opportunities including fund and direct investments, as well as an “absolute return” multi-strategy hedge fund of funds – but no financial incentive to encourage usage of any of these options unless agreed to by you. HB does not charge any fees for access.
• Ability to view your portfolio performance details at any time 24/7 online, including all public and private investments.*
• Access to confidential preferred low-cost margin rate.
• Experienced client service team with both institutional and family office backgrounds.

*Private investments are illiquid and are exposed to various risks, including, but not limited to, potential for complete loss of principal, liquidity constraints, and lack of transparency of the underlying investments, as more fully discussed in the private fund’s offering documents; investors cannot be assured that private fund investments will produce returns superior to those of the public markets; the fees associated with investing in private funds may be significant, and could potentially be layered; unlike liquid investments that a client/investor may maintain, private fund investments do not provide daily liquidity or pricing; investors are required to make certain representations regarding their financial qualifications for the purpose of determining whether the investor may invest and at what amount; private fund investments could complicate and potentially delay an investor’s ability to file taxes, and so should seek professional tax advice before investing in a private fund. This is not a solicitation, offer, or recommendation and some of the information has been sourced by a third party. Please consult your Homrich Berg client service team to determine if private investments are suitable for your overall investment portfolio, and to determine the appropriate allocation to private alternative investments if used in the portfolio.

Building a plan to balance near-term needs and long-term sustainability for your organization.

• Our process starts with a review of prior investment policy statements and a discussion of our fresh perspective with Board members, including:
  • Identifying cash flow situation and long-term liquidity needs.
  • Assessing need/ability to take risk vs. willingness to take risk.
  • Discussing desired risk comfort for the portfolio (considering the prior two bullet points).
  • Assessing income and total return targets for portfolio vs. market expectations.
• Using the points above, we will then work with Board members to model different cash flow scenarios within our cash flow planning software (eMoney). These scenarios might include increased giving in certain years, funding level changes, and/or market events. This modeling helps the Board to set a comfortable level of distributions in the near term while helping to ensure the long-term sustainability of the portfolio to serve the community or organization.
• These outputs and our discussion are then used to update or develop a new IPS for board approval including a target for investment returns and appropriate asset class allocation ranges.
• From there, we design a portfolio allocation appropriate for current market conditions within the guidelines of the IPS.
• Finally, we execute the game plan and begin monitoring for adjustments/rebalancing. Quarterly updates provide clarity on current allocation vs. IPS ranges as well as performance relative to targets and benchmarks.

While we have a standard reporting package commonly used for most of our OCIO clients, ultimately, we will tailor the reporting package to meet the needs of your organization. We start our OCIO reports with a simple dashboard that allows the relevant committee members to quickly see the allocation, performance, dollars in and out, and movement over time of these factors at a glance. We also include a summary of total manager expenses so that the organization is aware of total fees paid to us vs. those paid directly to other managers (remembering that we have no incentive to use any specific manager and that we typically seek to keep costs as low as possible where we do not believe the potential returns justify the extra expense). Performance reporting includes comparisons to benchmarks overall and by asset class, and if alternative investments are part of the portfolio, then additional reporting shows IRR performance and other relevant information.