The first edition of PRIME: The Primer for the Responsible Investment Management of Endowments can now be downloaded. Or download the 4-page executive summary here.

Created in a partnership between The European Social Investment Forum (Eurosif), and the Bellagio Forum for Sustainable Development and in cooperation with the European Foundation Centre (EFC), the aim of PRIME is to assist  trustees, officers and directors of foundations to better understand and integrate Responsible Investment practices (sometimes called Socially Responsible Investment or SRI) into mandates they give to asset managers entrusted with the management of their endowments.

Over the last decade, we have observed a growing interest and tendency on the part of many actors to take into account extra-financial aspects of financial asset management. PRIME is an initiative by the Bellagio Forum for Sustainable Development to help ensure that assets endowed to foundations will be invested responsibly in accordance with the foundations’ ethical and long-term sustainability objectives.

 The Bellagio Forum / Eurosif PRIME Toolkit for Foundations aims at helping trustees better understand and integrate Responsible Investment (RI) practices into mandates they give to asset managers entrusted with the management of their endowments.

We aim to provide readers with a resource to assist them as these factors become increasingly relevant to good asset management and the expectations of the public and various stakeholders.

The PRIME Toolkit is designed to provide an introduction to a number of key issues and investment strategy options for trustees from endowed and grant-making foundations. Our objective is to provide foundation trustees and executives with the basic tools needed to engage in serious and informed discussions with their fund managers, references to additional information, and knowledge about other practices by their peers. The responsible trustee may not be an expert in finance, but should seek to become conversant in financial issues and various emerging investing strategies in order to effectively oversee their institution’s asset management strategy. This document does not serve as a technical manual to work through specific types of asset management strategies. It can, however, be used by foundation heads, trustees, non-profit directors and fund managers as an orientation tool.

The PRIME Toolkit combines background information with case studies on best practice examples and useful tools for trustees. It also contains a Glossary that explains commonly used terms and References for further reading.

PRIME will be officially launched in mid-September 2006 when the Bellagio Forum and its partners will endeavor to make foundation leaders aware of this unique and helpful toolkit.