Funds Management

Endowment Management

We believe investment success is the result of:
  • A focus on the long term;
  • Diversification across a variety of asset classes, styles and strategies;
  • The careful evaluation of market characteristics followed by the application of informed, professional judgment in the construction of investment programs;
  • The retention of high-quality managers to execute specific assignments;
  • Consistent review;
  • Disciplined risk management.

Key elements of our philosophy are:

  • Informed research to collect data and research that uncovers or discovers opportunities;
  • Rigorous analysis and quantitative assessment to anticipate opportunity by discerning patterns of valuation;
  • Opportunistic fund management to take advantage of secular market shifts and short term market anomalies;
  • Market continuity to have a long-term perspective and commitment over market cycles and deliver alpha-generating strategies across all asset classes;
  • Capacity to place investment performance ahead of fund size and to close funds for new investment if the opportunity set narrows.

The UND Foundation is proud to work with SEI, our outsourced chief investment officer. SEI has been delivering investment outsourcing solutions for more than 25 years and manages $21.2 billion on behalf of 169 nonprofit clients (as of June 30, 2016.) SEI’s professionals created a custom investment portfolio designed to meet our organizational and financial goals, and the SEI solution allows us to focus on fulfilling our university's mission.

Our investment and spending policies, as approved by the UND Foundation board, can be found here.

Life Income Gift Management

TIAA Kaspick, a nationally recognized firm, manages and administers our planned gift assets (charitable remainder trusts and gift annuities). The firm, a subsidiary of TIAA, is headquartered in Redwood Shores, California, and has offices in St. Louis, Missouri and Boston, Massachusetts. The firm uses no-load and institutional quality mutual funds to build broadly diversified portfolios, and this diversification into a broad spectrum of assets is a prudent approach. Comprehensive reports on performance and asset allocation are provided so that you and UND Foundation can easily track this important investment.