Customized OCIO Solutions
Together with our clients, we build lasting partnerships to achieve investment outperformance and operational excellence, delivered in a way that is tailored for each individual client.
Our Customized
OCIO Approach
For our nonprofit clients, we bring a combination of expertise, scale and flexibility to help meet their investment objectives.
Non-profit staff, investment officers and investment committees continue to face big challenges – complex capital markets, increasingly tough regulatory oversight, high donor expectations and potentially lower expected market returns. That’s why we help purpose-driven institutions balance these challenges and address short-term demands with long-term objectives.
Whether seeking a fully outsourced solution or transitioning from a non-discretionary model for the first time, our approach meets our clients where they are and provides the right level of fiduciary support to fulfill their objectives.
Our team’s experience helps organizations optimize their investment strategies, ensure effective governance and focus internal resources on core business operations. Our model is consultative – we partner with our clients to understand their specific organization and investment goals and bring the right data, insights and expertise as needed. Brown Advisory provides a unique spectrum of OCIO options for not-for-profit organizations.
The Difference
Our dedicated OCIO practice specifically focuses on how we serve the unique needs of purpose-driven institutions of all types and sizes, including educational institutions and endowments, hospitals and healthcare organizations, foundations and charitable organizations and family offices. Every portfolio we manage is customized using our own global investment model strategy to fit the specific needs of each partner organization.
Brandon Parrish, Thad Glowacki and Adela Skenderasi, Portfolio Managers.
How we achieve your objectives:
- Investment Policy Development
- Manager Due Diligence & Selection
- Governance & Fiduciary Oversight
- Portfolio Strategy & Management
- Portfolio Risk Management
- Administration & Reporting
We advise and lead our non-profit partners through the complexities of their investments and asset management to achieve their mission. As your OCIO, we serve as an extension of your team.
We employ a variety of investment services, including developing investment policies and objectives, analyzing asset allocation and diversification, researching and selecting investment managers, providing due diligence and performance monitoring of managers and supplying periodic performance reports and customized education.
Organizations of all sizes are increasingly engaging an outsourced investment solution to improve governance, manage complexity and access sophisticated investments – all while aiming to drive cost savings. Investment committees might only meet once a quarter and often are not able to execute rapidly. We believe the right OCIO partner actively manages investments, pivots as markets evolve and ensures investment programs are positioned to achieve long-term goals.
Solutions Our firm’s focus on building customized portfolios to meet the specific needs of our clients distinguishes our approach to partnering with our clients. We understand that each client faces its own unique challenges, which is why a “one-size-fits-all” approach to portfolio construction doesn’t work. That’s why we collaborate with our clients to build a custom portfolio for each individual client that reflects their return objectives and risk tolerance.
Diligence When performing our research/due diligence process on prospective investment managers, we analyze the manager from an operational perspective as well as an investment perspective. We evaluate a firm’s operations by considering multiple factors, such as the quality of service providers, trading procedures, disaster recovery transparency, etc., and consider these operational traits to be vital in gauging the entire risk profile of the investment manager. Our job is to protect our clients to the best of our ability, which is why our due diligence team always has the final say on whether we invest with a manager.
Resources Our asset base enables us to attract talent and access the resources necessary to best serve our clients worldwide. Aside from our OCIO practice, our institutional business manages a complex portfolio of mutual funds across asset classes. The insight captured by our investors is shared across the firm, providing real-time market intelligence, and making our OCIO team more informed investors.
EfficiencyAs an extension of your team, our OCIO team is positioned to support your staff and make their lives easier. From the first moment of our relationship, our team approach provides a full work plan for streamlined onboarding, coordinating with our clients’ custodians, and building reporting that meets our clients’ needs. We manage alternative asset subscription and redemption processes from start to finish, meeting required deadlines while facilitating effective communication to transfer assets to a selected fund. Our preparation process for quarterly meetings makes for smooth reporting. Lastly, our team is positioned to assist clients with their internal and external audit requirements.
Brown Advisory is a privately owned independent investment management and strategic advisory firm. We view ourselves as partners to our clients and their stakeholders in the stewardship of their capital. We too are a partnership where most of our shareholders are our active colleagues, working with clients every day, and no shareholder owns more than 5% of the equity. Our success is wholly aligned with our clients’ success.
Brigid Peterson, Head of E&F Business and Amy Seto, Senior Advisor.
Strategic Advice
Our clients often struggle with limited resources while trying to manage multiple priorities. Unique to Brown Advisory is our Strategic Advisory Group – a differentiating resource available to our clients whose mission is to provide holistic advice to clients to help them advance their organizational objectives. Our Strategic Advisors are subject matter experts – legal, accounting and philanthropic professionals – with diverse professional backgrounds and experiences, from established law firms to advising government officials to extensive work with families and non-profits.
Our Strategic Advisors spearhead conversations with clients around matters such as appropriate spending rates, short-term financing, the types and structures of assets that non-profits should accept from donors, optimal methods for framing conversations around planned giving and major gifts, strategic planning and appropriate strategies for pursuing mission-aligned investing. We have found it is most effective to consider these issues along with ongoing investment management decisions to ensure a cohesive and intentional pursuit of long-term goals. Strategic Advisors add a complementary perspective to the management of an organization’s investments and provide an additional layer of expertise and insight.
Our Strategic Advisors have a proven history of successful collaboration. Our clients often have multiple advisors, and we pride ourselves on working closely with and positively leveraging clients’ external advisors, accountants, committee members and attorneys who may already be involved in helping navigate financial and strategic decisions.
Our strategic advisors offer:
- Governance and Fiduciary Oversight
- Planned Giving and Donor Development
- Mission-Aligned Investing
- Board and Committee Education
$14 billion
NON-PROFIT CLIENT ASSETS
$4.7 billion
OCIO CLIENT ASSETS
$250 million
AVERAGE CLIENT ASSETS
*Source: Brown Advisory. Data are as of 12/31/2023 and is the most recent data available.
OCIO Team
With decades of business experience, our seasoned team provides clients with the knowledge and insights to confidently address challenges and pursue long-term goals. Let's start a conversation.