Endowment, Foundation,
& Nonprofit Investment Management in Nashville
Institutional capital carries a dual mandate that individual portfolios never face: fund the mission today, and preserve and grow the corpus in perpetuity. We manage both — transparently, with individual stocks and bonds, inside a fiduciary relationship.
Portfolio management led by Erik James Roberts, MBA — Founder & Chief Investment Officer, Infinitus Wealth Management. Wharton MBA · U.S. Army veteran (101st Airborne) · Purple Heart recipient.
• Fiduciary • Custom Portfolios • Active Management • Investment Focused
⎯ The Institutional Mandate
Fund the Mission Today. Preserve the Corpus Forever.
Endowments and foundations exist to support a mission in perpetuity — which means the portfolio has to do two things at once: generate reliable distributions to fund programs now, and grow the corpus enough to keep doing so for generations of beneficiaries who haven't arrived yet.
That dual mandate is what makes institutional investing different. Capital isn't simply preserved or grown — it's stewarded. Every distribution that funds a scholarship, a grant, or an operating budget has to come without quietly eroding the real, inflation-adjusted value of the fund for the next generation.
Effective endowment and foundation investment management resolves that tension through a disciplined, total-return approach: a growth-oriented core to keep the corpus ahead of spending and inflation, balanced by stability and liquidity to fund commitments through any market.
At Infinitus, that portfolio is built from individual stocks and bonds, managed directly by the Chief Investment Officer, and governed by your spending policy and Investment Policy Statement — fully transparent, fully liquid, inside a fee-only fiduciary relationship.
⎯ What Makes It Different
Six Realities of Managing Institutional Capital
Endowments, foundations, and nonprofits answer to a mission and a board, not a single investor. These are the forces that shape every institutional portfolio we build.
⎯ Spending & Sustainability
A Spending Policy the Portfolio Can Actually Sustain
Most endowments target an annual distribution near four to five percent. The real test isn't hitting that number once — it's funding it year after year without quietly shrinking the fund in inflation-adjusted terms.
We build the portfolio around the total-return math: it has to grow faster than spending plus inflation combined, or the corpus slowly loses ground even as its dollar value holds steady. We help boards model and calibrate a sustainable spending rate, then manage the portfolio to support it across market cycles.
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Total-return approach, not chasing yield alone
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Spending modeled against return and inflation assumptions
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Real growth of the corpus, not just nominal preservation
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Distributions fundable through down markets
⎯ Growing the Corpus
Active, Research-Driven Management Built for Long-Term Growth
The single most important driver of an endowment's future is the long-term growth of its corpus. We manage for that growth actively, with conviction, and with full transparency into every position.
An endowment with a perpetual horizon is, in a sense, the ideal long-term investor — able to look past short-term noise and let quality capital compound for decades. We build institutional portfolios to take advantage of that, with a growth-oriented core of high-quality individual equities selected through direct research, balanced by fixed income for stability and liquidity.
This is active, research-driven management — real security selection and disciplined risk calibration, not a static allocation left to drift. Markets evolve, and we make measured, deliberate adjustments while keeping the portfolio aligned with your return targets and risk parameters. Over a perpetual horizon, compounding is the most powerful force the fund has, and our job is to protect and harness it.
Just as important, every holding is a security you can see, understand, and value — owned directly, not buried inside an opaque commingled vehicle.
How we pursue institutional growth
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Growth-oriented core of researched individual equities
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Fixed income for stability and reliable liquidity
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Active, tactical adjustment within your IPS parameters
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Long-term compounding protected from cost and tax drag
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Every position transparent, owned directly, and liquid
⎯ Our Differentiator
An Institutional Approach — Without the Opacity
The traditional endowment model leans heavily on private equity, hedge funds, and other illiquid alternatives. For the largest universities with vast staffs, that can have a place. For most endowments, foundations, and nonprofits, it brings opacity, lockups, layered fees, and complexity that work against the mission.
We take a different path: institutional-grade active management built entirely from individual stocks and bonds. Every position is transparent and liquid, the cost is lower, and the portfolio is customized to your mission rather than forced into standardized vehicles. Your board can see exactly what it owns — and access it when grants and operations require.
⎯ Governance & Oversight
Built to Support Your Board and Investment Committee
Institutional investing involves multiple stakeholders and a duty of prudence. We're built to make that easier — with clear governance, structured reporting, and a direct line to the decision-maker.
Boards and investment committees carry a fiduciary responsibility for the assets they oversee, and they deserve a manager who makes that responsibility easier to discharge — not harder. We work directly with your committee to develop or refine the Investment Policy Statement, then manage the portfolio strictly within its return targets, spending policy, and risk parameters.
Transparency is the foundation. Because the portfolio holds individual securities, your committee can see every position, understand every decision, and review clear, structured reporting at each meeting. And the person managing the assets is the same person who joins your committee discussions — the Chief Investment Officer, not a relationship manager relaying messages.
How we support governance
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Help develop or refine your Investment Policy Statement
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Manage within return, spending, and risk parameters
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Clear, structured reporting for every committee meeting
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Full visibility into every holding in the portfolio
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Direct committee access to the Chief Investment Officer
⎯ Beyond a Flat Percentage
How a Spending Policy Is Actually Built
Most boards know the four-to-five-percent figure. Fewer have looked closely at the methodology underneath it — and that methodology determines whether your program budgets are stable or swing with the market.
There are several established approaches, each with a different trade-off between budget stability and responsiveness:
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Simple percentage of market value — easy, but distributions rise and fall sharply with markets
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Moving-average (rolling) method — spending is based on a trailing multi-year average of market value, smoothing year-to-year swings
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Inflation-plus (banded) method — last year's distribution grown by inflation, kept within a floor and ceiling
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Hybrid / weighted-average rule — blends a spending-rate target with an inflation-adjusted prior distribution to dampen volatility while staying responsive
We help boards model these approaches against their own budget realities and choose the one that fits — then manage the portfolio to sustain it. The right rule is the one that keeps the mission funded predictably without quietly spending down the corpus.
⎯ Structuring the Pools
Operating Reserves, Strategic Reserves, and the Long-Term Endowment
Most organizations don't have one portfolio — they have layers of capital with different jobs. Managing them as a single undifferentiated pool is one of the most common and costly mistakes in nonprofit investing.
An operating reserve that covers near-term obligations should never carry the same risk as capital meant to last forever — and a perpetual endowment shouldn't be invested as conservatively as next quarter's payroll. Yet organizations make both mistakes constantly, leaving operating cash exposed to market risk or letting long-term capital sit too defensively to keep up with inflation.
We structure institutional assets as distinct pools, each matched to its time horizon: an operating reserve held safely and liquidly, a strategic reserve for intermediate needs, and a long-term endowment positioned for growth. Each pool gets its own mandate, its own risk profile, and its own role — so near-term commitments are always secure and long-term capital is always working.
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Operating reserve — safety and liquidity for immediate needs
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Strategic reserve — balanced for one-to-five-year obligations
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Long-term endowment — growth-oriented for perpetuity
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Each pool sized and managed to its own purpose
⎯ Investing the Mission
Aligning the Portfolio With Your Organization's Values
For many nonprofits, how the money is invested matters as much as how it performs. The portfolio is, in a sense, an extension of the mission — and it can be built to reflect that.
Many organizations want their investments to align with what they stand for — excluding certain industries, applying faith-based or values-driven screens, or emphasizing areas consistent with their purpose. The difficulty with the traditional fund model is that you can't customize a commingled fund. You own whatever is inside it, screens and all, with no say in the underlying holdings.
This is where direct ownership becomes a genuine advantage. Because we build portfolios from individual stocks and bonds, we can apply your organization's specific exclusions and priorities at the security level — implementing values alignment precisely, without giving up diversification or paying for specialty funds. Your committee decides what the portfolio should and shouldn't hold, and we build it that way.
Mission alignment shouldn't require compromising on cost, transparency, or discipline. With individual securities, it doesn't have to.
Values alignment, implemented directly
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Custom industry or sector exclusions you define
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Faith-based or values-driven screens applied at the security level
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Positive emphasis on areas consistent with your mission
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Full transparency into every holding you own
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No forced exposure buried inside a commingled fund
⎯ Stewardship & Standards
Prudent Stewardship, Donor Intent, and Gifts of Stock
Institutional capital is held to a standard of prudence and a duty to honor the intentions behind every gift. Managing to those standards — not just to a return number — is part of the work.
In most states, institutional funds are governed by a prudent-management standard (commonly under the Uniform Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act, or UPMIFA), which shapes how funds may be invested and spent — including the duty to consider the fund's preservation, its purpose, general economic conditions, and the intent of donors. We manage with those principles built in: respecting restrictions on donor-restricted funds, distinguishing true endowment from board-designated (quasi) endowment, and helping committees navigate the sensitive situation of an "underwater" fund whose value has fallen below its original gift.
Gifts themselves bring their own questions. Nonprofits frequently receive donations of appreciated stock or a single large, concentrated position — and how those gifts are handled matters. A clear approach to what gets liquidated, what gets held, and how a concentrated donated position is diversified protects the organization from carrying unintended risk. Because we manage individual securities, donated holdings fold naturally into the right pool rather than forcing an all-or-nothing decision.
This is general education on how we approach stewardship, not legal or tax advice; specifics should be confirmed with your counsel and auditors.
How we steward institutional capital
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Manage with prudent-investor principles in mind
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Honor donor restrictions and the purpose of each fund
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Distinguish true endowment from board-designated funds
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Help committees navigate underwater-endowment situations
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Handle gifts of stock and concentrated positions deliberately
⎯ Local Roots, National Reach
Nashville-Based, Serving Institutions Nationwide
Based on Music Row, we work with endowments, foundations, and nonprofit organizations across Nashville and throughout the country. The region's growth has brought a deepening institutional presence — universities, hospitals, community foundations, and charitable organizations — that need thoughtful, transparent investment management aligned with their missions.
Whether your organization stewards its first endowment or a long-established fund, the conversation starts the same way: directly, and on your terms.
⎯ Working Together
How the Relationship Works
Clients come to us expecting clarity, discipline, and direct access to the person managing their capital. The process is built to deliver exactly that.
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Discovery Call
A no-pressure conversation about your goals, holdings, and what you want your wealth to do — by phone, video, or in person.
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Strategy Review
We review your holdings, goals, and risk profile, then share observations on how your portfolio is positioned and where a tailored approach may help.
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Onboarding
Thoughtful, paced execution and, where appropriate, hedging — executed with intention rather than reaction.
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Active Management
We build and manage your portfolio of individual securities, with ongoing research and protfolio reviews.
Schedule a Private Portfolio Consultation
For investors seeking disciplined portfolio management,
tactical asset allocation, and long-term capital stewardship.
Confidential discussion
No Obligation
Direct conversation with Founder & Chief Investment Officer
Learn about our Active & Personalized Portfolio Management
Explore our Investment Strategies
⎯ Transparent, Fee-Only
Fees
We accept zero commissions and act as a fiduciary — mandated by law and ethically bound to put our clients’ interests first. Our fee is based on assets under management, so we do well when you do well.
No Performance Fees
We charge no performance fees. Our simple and straightforward Assets Under Management fee allows our advisors to focus on achieving our clients' goals.
No Commissions
We charge no commissions on buying and selling investments, so our interests are completely aligned as we grow and protect your accounts.
No Financial Planning Costs
A complimentary and comprehensive financial plan is available to all clients of Infinitus Wealth Management.
⎯ Frequently Asked Questions
Endowment & Foundation Investing — Questions Boards Ask
How should an endowment or foundation invest its assets? Institutional capital is invested on a total-return basis to serve two goals at once: funding annual distributions that support the mission and preserving the real, inflation-adjusted value of the corpus over a perpetual horizon. That calls for a disciplined balance of growth-oriented equity and stabilizing fixed income, governed by a clear spending policy and Investment Policy Statement, and managed actively rather than left in a static model.
What is a sustainable spending or distribution rate? Many endowments and foundations target an annual distribution in the range of roughly four to five percent, though the sustainable rate depends on the portfolio's expected return, inflation, and the organization's needs. The discipline that matters is ensuring distributions can be funded without eroding the inflation-adjusted value of the corpus over time. We help model and calibrate that rate within your spending policy.
How do you protect the endowment's purchasing power from inflation? Preserving purchasing power requires the portfolio to grow faster than the combination of spending and inflation. We pursue that through a growth-oriented core of high-quality individual equities, balanced by fixed income for stability and liquidity. The objective is real growth of the corpus over time, not simply maintaining its nominal dollar value, which inflation steadily erodes.
Do you use private equity and alternatives like large university endowments? No. Infinitus builds institutional portfolios from individual stocks and bonds rather than illiquid alternatives. This provides full transparency into every holding, daily liquidity for grants and operations, lower overall cost, and avoidance of the complexity and potential unrelated business income tax issues some alternative structures create — an institutional approach without the opacity and lockups of the traditional alternatives-heavy model.
Can you work with our investment committee and Investment Policy Statement? Yes. We work directly with boards and investment committees, help develop or refine the Investment Policy Statement, manage the portfolio within its return targets, spending policy, and risk parameters, and provide clear, structured reporting so decision-makers always understand strategy and results. Governance and transparency are central to how we serve institutions.
Are there tax considerations for a nonprofit's investments? Although nonprofits are generally tax-exempt, certain investments — particularly some leveraged or alternative structures — can generate unrelated business income tax. A portfolio of individual stocks and bonds typically avoids those triggers. Organizations should confirm specifics with their auditors or counsel; Infinitus does not provide legal or tax advice.
What does Infinitus Wealth Management charge? Infinitus is a fee-only fiduciary and charges asset-based advisory fees beginning at 1.00% on portfolios under $1 million and scaling down toward 0.80% at $10 million and above. There are no commissions and no performance fees.
Who We Serve
Investment Management for Individuals, Families, & Institutions
⎯ Explore Further
Related Strategies & Reading
Disclosure: Infinitus Wealth Management is a registered investment adviser. Registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training. All investments involve risk, including the potential loss of principal. No investment strategy can guarantee returns or eliminate risk, and past performance is not indicative of future results. Advisory services are offered only pursuant to a written advisory agreement.