Services · Foundations & Institutions

Your grants are already working hard for your mission. The other 95% of your endowment can be, too.

You don’t have to be ready for all of it to begin. Wherever your foundation is in the journey, we walk alongside you.

Brighter is a fee-only fiduciary, Certified B Corporation, and Public Benefit LLC.

Schedule a discovery conversationFind your starting point

Areas of Focus

  • Whole endowment management/Outsourced Chief Investment Officer
  • Investment policy & governance
  • Portfolio assessment
  • Board education
  • Staff & board impact investing coaching
  • ESG, Mission-Related Investments (MRI), Program-Related Investments (PRI) & catalytic capital
  • Impact Carve-Out Management
  • Place-based deal sourcing, diligence, and active oversight

Where are you on the journey?

Four entry points to start

Foundations come to us at different stages. Whether you have been impact investing for years or are just getting started, we have entry points designed to meet you where you are.

Know What You Own

Starting the conversation

A clear look at how your endowment is invested and how that relates to the causes you fund.

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Mission & Portfolio Alignment Accelerator

Building a point of view

Coaching for a foundation’s board or staff to begin to see what is possible with impact investing.

See this path

Impact Carve-Out Management

Ready for a proof of concept

A dedicated mission aligned sleeve with live capital, full diligence, and measurable results.

See this path

Whole Endowment Investment Management

Ready to align everything

Brighter manages the full endowment, and mission can be integrated throughout the portfolio.

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Path 01 · For foundations starting the conversation

Know What You Own

A focused portfolio assessment that measures how your endowment aligns with the causes that are important to you. It’s translated into a format that can be easily understood by your board. This serves as a clear picture of what you own in a foundation ready document that can start the next conversation.

What your foundation receives

  • A holdings-level portfolio assessment, scored against your stated mission and funding priorities
  • A one-page, board ready alignment summary you can bring directly into your next governance meeting
  • A short working session with your Executive Director or lead trustee to walk through the findings before that meeting

What becomes possible

  • Your board starts seeing itself as one fiduciary across grants and endowment together
  • Evidence, not opinion, for the alignment conversation that follows

Path 02 · For foundations building a point of view

Mission & Portfolio Alignment Accelerator

This is not a cohort program. It’s individualized executive coaching that is built around your foundation’s needs. Whether you have professional staff or a volunteer board, we work directly with them in a structured, high-touch engagement that builds shared language and surfaces action items. If desired, we are available to walk alongside you through implementation while you keep your current advisor, or use this to prepare for whatever comes next.

What your foundation receives

  • Monthly one-on-one coaching with a designated individual or team
  • Specific, actionable moves within your current portfolio and IPS
  • Multiplier effect levers you can pull right now (e.g. moving operating cash to a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI))
  • Board education paced to fit your needs, with an ability to engage next generation leadership in the conversation

What becomes possible

  • Formation of a clear, evidence-backed point of view on the endowment
  • Trustees begin to see how impact can become an active part of the endowment
  • The foundation makes data-informed choices to close the alignment gap between mission and investments
  • When you’re ready for more, you’ll have an actionable roadmap that optimizes assets for purpose and perpetuity

Path 03 · For foundations ready for a proof of concept

Impact Carve-Out Management

A dedicated mission powered sleeve of the endowment, stewarded and managed by Brighter. The same diligence we’d apply to a whole endowment, right-sized to the carve-out. Putting a portion of your endowed capital to work in a lower-stakes environment, with meaningful community impact.

What your foundation receives

  • A carve-out Investment Policy Statement designed for board oversight and fiduciary confidence
  • Brighter’s full diligence applied to mission aligned public and private investments
  • Reporting that shows both financial return and measurable mission alignment

What becomes possible

  • Trustees not yet ready to move the full portfolio get a real, low-stakes way to experience impact investing
  • A track record that turns the broader alignment conversation from hypothetical to evidence-based
  • Capital deployed and invested in the places and causes you fund with grants

Path 04 · For foundations ready to align everything

Whole Endowment Investment Management

Brighter becomes your outsourced Chief Investment Officer. We manage the full endowment as a total return, policy driven portfolio that is built around your spending needs and time horizon, with mission threaded throughout the portfolio.

What your foundation receives

  • A total return, policy driven portfolio with mission integrated throughout the portfolio
  • Direct ownership through separately managed accounts and direct indexing where appropriate, with customizable exclusions and mission tilts
  • Quarterly reviews, Investment Policy Statement (IPS) stewardship, and liquidity planning tied to your grantmaking cycle
  • Open architecture access to public and private markets with no proprietary funds

What becomes possible

  • Your board leaves each meeting with clear answers and direct paths between its money and impact
  • Access to mission-aligned private market opportunities, including local and place-based deals
  • Endowment capital can work alongside your grantmaking by reaching the causes and communities your foundation already exists to serve

How the engagement unfolds

  1. Mission Discovery

    We start with what your foundation is trying to accomplish. The Portfolio Mirror Process shows your board what you actually own at the holdings level.

  2. Shared Understanding

    Education for board, investment committee, staff, and next generation family. Shared language and conviction come before strategy.

  3. Investment Strategy Design

    The Working Strategy Framework translates mission into an investable strategy, bridging where most foundations get stuck between mission and Investment Policy Statement (IPS).

  4. Portfolio & Governance Infrastructure

    IPS co-created with your board, plus a governance toolkit: committee charter, manager selection criteria, direct investment framework, and a performance + impact dashboard.

  5. Rigorous Diligence

    Financial and impact. Every investment clears two bars, with a separate evaluation for the credibility of any impact claim.

  6. Ongoing Partnership

    Quarterly performance, annual impact reviews, semi-annual board meetings, trustee education. We source mission matched opportunities throughout.

Built for the realities of foundation finance: the 5% distribution minimum, the 1.39% excise tax on net investment income, multi-year grant commitments, and perpetual vs. spend-down horizons all shape the strategy we design.

Link below for the full engagement detail, including the frameworks, the diligence layers, and how the portfolio comes together.

See the full Whole Endowment engagement

Why our team

A senior team with decades across the field

Across our partners and directors we bring decades of combined experience spanning the issues foundations care about and the wealth management discipline to steward a full endowment.

Wealth Management & Fiduciary
Gary Whitehurst’s 20+ years and CSRIC designation, at a firm grown to $1.4 billion in assets.
Community Foundations & Governance
Jillian Rosen’s 12+ years at a community foundation, launching and establishing the foundation's impact carve-out from their endowment.
Community Development
Anna Cable's work across the Southeast nonprofit ecosystem and own launch of her women's economic mobility nonprofit, along with Roshni Chengappa’s years in a global workforce nonprofit and measuring real-world impact.
Social Justice & Economic Mobility
Kelsey Russell's intentionally built ecosystem enables a social justice investment strategy overseen by a thoughtfully selected external advisory board, and community investment portfolios sourced by ecosystem partners across education, housing, and economic mobility.
Climate & Environment
Led by Nancy Sagar, a Climate Reality Leadership Corps member and our climate-investing lead.
Ecosystem & Place
Deep Southeast networks — Georgia Social Impact Collaboration (GSIC), Georgia Grant Makers Alliance (GGA), Neighborhood Nexus, Root Local, B Local Georgia, and Kindred Futures — that surface opportunities national firms have more challenge uncovering.

Brighter is an impact multiplier

accelerating each foundation’s impact on the causes they care about.

Many of the trustees we work with are individual investors, too.

See how we work with Private Clients

Let’s talk

Wherever you are on the journey, there’s a way to begin.

We'd love to have a conversation about what your foundation is trying to build and what the engagement could look like from where you stand.

Schedule a discovery conversation