Our dedicated endowments and foundations team seeks to provide investment solutions across public and private markets to help clients achieve their objectives. We function as an extension of our clients' in-house teams, harnessing our analytics, research, insights and thought leadership to help drive investment decisions.
Endowments and foundations
How we serve endowments and foundations
We understand results stem from more than just investment strategies. Our client engagement model focuses on understanding our clients business goals and supporting their growth by addressing both investment and operational needs. Transparency and knowledge transfer are at the heart of our approach.
Our offerings include:
• OCIO services and whole portfolio strategies that help endowments and foundations address their long-term objectives
• Cutting-edge investment solutions across active, index and alternatives
• Innovative risk management powered by our Aladdin® platform
• Portfolio analysis and insights from our in-house Client Insight Unit (CIU)
• Liquidity optimization analysis to assess and seek to optimize risk and return
• Private equity diagnostics, leveraging our proprietary tools and models to assist with portfolio planning to mitigate J-curve risk, while seeking incremental alpha in a cost-efficient manner
• Bespoke hedge fund performance-based risk analyses at the total portfolio and individual manager level, providing insights on key drivers of risk and return, as well as scenario analyses and portfolio optimization
• Events, workshops and peer forums to collaborate, share best practices and exchange perspectives
• Thought leadership that leverages the firm's deep expertise
Meeting the challenge of the new regime in endowment portfolios
It’s a new market era for endowment and foundation (E&F) investors. To meet the challenges of the new regime, we see four key actions E&Fs could take.
Our investment platform
BlackRock provides an extensive suite of investment strategies across public and private markets. Our dedicated endowments and foundations team creates a tailored client experience built to address each client's unique objectives.
Diversified alternatives
BlackRock’s alternatives platform offers endowments and foundations attractive, differentiated strategies that seek to enhance returns, reduce the broader market volatility impact and drive long-term growth across market cycles. Our alternatives platform is designed to deliver endowments and foundations a range of investment options across hedge funds, private equity, private credit and real assets including infrastructure and transition finance investing.
At BlackRock, we believe that the need for an approach to alternative investing that is scalable, disciplined, integrated, technology-enabled and transparent has never been greater. BlackRock's alternatives platform seeks to deliver endowments and foundations enhanced returns across a range of investments such as private credit, private equity and infrastructure.
Spotlight strategies for endowments and foundations
Private equity
Our private equity platform takes a holistic approach to private equity portfolios, offering both direct strategies and portfolio solutions that align with client objectives and seek to deliver persistent outperformance.
Private credit
BlackRock offers a suite of solutions across private credit, including direct lending, opportunistic and special situations investments strategies.
Hedge funds
With over twenty years of proven experience in managing these strategies, our hedge fund platform is differentiated in its combination of skill and scale, delivering solutions that span geographies, asset classes and styles.
Fixed income
Endowments and foundations investors are aiming to take advantage of the current yield environment. They are looking to bolster the performance of their short-term liquidity pools while simultaneously building ballast within their broader portfolio.
With Rick Rieder as BlackRock’s Chief Investment Officer of Global Fixed Income, BlackRock helps endowments and foundations navigate the entire fixed income spectrum - from active & index, public to private - to help deliver better outcomes, convenience, value and transparency for our clients.
Spotlight strategies for endowments and foundations
Short Duration
BlackRock’s Short Duration strategies employ a fundamental, diversified and relative-value approach focused solely on the front end of the yield curve.
Securitized Assets
BlackRock's Securitized Assets platform employs an investment process focused on analytics, and ongoing surveillance at both the borrower and portfolio level.
Unconstrained
BlackRock’s unconstrained fixed income strategies, including Strategic Income Opportunities Fund (SIO), navigate across sectors and seek to optimize for stable attractive returns, while managing downside risk.
Equities
BlackRock offers endowments and foundations an array of liquid investments to access equity markets – from traditional index building blocks, to niche innovative systematic strategies, to high-conviction fundamental strategies.
Our fundamental and systematic equity strategies offer investors curated access to global markets as well as key investment insights. BlackRock’s equity investors and researchers combine company-specific research, innovative proprietary modeling and industry analysis to provide clients with insights that aim to deliver consistent, differentiated attractive return streams.
Fundamental
Our fundamental active equity investment strategies leverage BlackRock’s resources in efforts to meet client demands for higher alpha and outcome-oriented strategies.
Systematic
BlackRock’s systematic investment platform combines cutting-edge technology, scientific research and human insight in the relentless pursuit of investment performance.
Index
Index investing strategies, including ETFs and direct index customization, can help reduce portfolio volatility, create liquidity sleeves and reduce costs.
Index investing
For over 50 years, we have developed a wide array of index strategies across sectors, qualities and geographic regions to address client needs. We collaborate with endowments and foundations clients to deliver customized beta exposures and invest in technology, such as Aladdin®, to continually enhance and improve our index replication process. Employing index investing strategies in institutional portfolios can help achieve a variety of goals including reducing portfolio volatility, creating liquidity sleeves and reducing plan investment costs.
Index exposure is available to institutional investors through separate accounts, pooled funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
Managing liquidity
Whether used as a permanent liquidity sleeve or a temporary way to access markets, ETFs can bring liquidity and low trading costs.
Enhancing cash
We believe institutions can incrementally increase yield by stepping out of cash across a spectrum of short duration offerings and respective risk levels.
Adjusting tactical and strategic allocations
Immediate, low-cost strategic exposure to sectors where active management may be insufficient or unnecessary.
Cash and liquidity
Endowments and foundations investors need effective cash management solutions to meet liquidity needs, fulfill capital calls and support ongoing operations.
BlackRock offers investment strategies and vehicles such as money market funds, short duration strategies, ETFs and separately managed accounts (SMAs) to address our clients’ individual liquidity needs.
Outsourced Chief Investment Officer (OCIO)
We leverage our investment expertise and proprietary technology platform, Aladdin®, to provide OCIO services and whole portfolio strategies that help endowments and foundations meet their objectives to fulfill the organization's mission over the long-term.
Our OCIO services for endowments and foundations:
- Incorporates best practices for nonprofit governance
- Offers a performance accountable approach
- Provides access to top private market managers
- Leverages industry-leading risk management tools
- Includes dedicated nonprofit expertise and education
Why BlackRock for OCIO
BlackRock has been entrusted with more than USD$280 billion in OCIO mandates globally, and 150 individuals, as of September 2023, dedicated to serving clients with a whole-portfolio approach that prioritizes your objectives.
Dedicated portfolio analysis for endowments & foundations
BlackRock’s Client Insight Unit (CIU) can help endowments & foundations develop solutions reflective of their core investment philosophy.
Tools and resources
Aladdin®
Our Aladdin® technology combines risk analytics with comprehensive portfolio management, trading and operations tools on a single platform to power informed decision-making, effective risk management, efficient trading and operational scale.
BlackRock Educational Academy (BEA)
BEA is an industry-leading academic platform providing real-time education from our suite of experts. We cover a broad range of topics that suit your learning style and schedules, through our on-demand library, in-person and virtual events.
More tools and resources
Latest insights for endowments and foundations
Our endowments and foundations team
Lili Forouraghi
Head of Family Offices, Healthcare, Endowments and Foundations and Official Institutions
Lili Forouraghi, CFA, Managing Director, is Head of BlackRock's Family Office, Healthcare, Endowments and Foundations and Official Institutions effort for the U.S., which provides investment management services, risk management and advisory solutions to these client segments.
Common questions
Additional resources
Insights hub
Stay ahead of the markets with insights from our strategists and portfolio managers, uncover the latest on the global economy, geopolitics and retirement among other timely investment ideas.
On-demand event library
Our library of institutional events covers asset classes, macro economic outlooks and portfolio positioning tactics from experts across the industry.