Hi all, I am a financial planner and having worked for several investment management firms in the past, I’ve been asked to assist a couple of local charities with investment due diligence & performance reviews.

The two charities I have been working with have 3 portfolios between them, and all 3 have underperformed their explicit (and many other, broader) benchmarks. This has come as a surprise to the respective boards, though not necessarily to me. What has surprised me is the fact that the investment managers have not been making any reference to this whatsoever, for years, and has raised a number of other questions.

In effect, the managers have been coming out to annual trustee board meetings, marking their own homework, and departing without challenge (despite prolonged underperformance).

None of the trustees I have spoken to have a financial / investment background and none of the other boards I have spoken to have ever involved an external party to help appraise the investment manager performance. So how, then, are Charity Boards generally demonstrating value for money / appropriateness of service?

May I ask what others do (if anything) in such circumstances? How are others assessing, questioning & documenting investment manager performance (good or bad)?