Dear FFTC, 

I’m a wealth manager, and I have some clients who are very community-oriented. We’ve been working together for many years and have a great working relationship. They recently inherited a large sum of money and would like to use most of it for charitable causes. My first thought was that they should consider opening a donor advised fund with their community foundation, but I have some questions about how those assets would be invested. They trust my investment advice and would prefer for me to manage their charitable assets instead of putting them in one of your investment pools. Is that possible? 

– Wealth Manager 

Dear Wealth Manager, 

It’s wonderful that you’ve built such a trusting relationship with your clients! We’d love to help you maintain the business and help the community at the same time. 

If your clients have more than $250,000 to contribute to a charitable fund, you can continue to be their investment manager with our Investment Alliance Manager Program, which was designed for this exact situation. They can open a donor advised fund at Foundation For The Carolinas, while you continue to manage the assets on your firm’s platform. Note that there is a different administrative fee schedule for funds managed through the program.  

Here’s how to get started: 

• The FFTC Investment Committee reviews and approves all investment alliance manager firms. Check out the list on our website to see current approved firms. 
• If your firm is not approved yet, provide us with the information listed in Exhibit A of the Program Guide. (This is a short request for information about your firm and advisory practice.) 
• Our Investment Committee members will work to approve your firm as an alliance manager once they review your response to the RFI. 
• Once approved, our investment staff will meet with you to sign FFTC’s Alliance Manager Program Investment Policy Statement, and to review our reporting requirements. 
• Your client can then recommend grants to the nonprofits they wish to support from their donor advised fund. FFTC will fund the grant in advance and then invoice the Alliance Manager account for reimbursement of the grant and any administrative fees.  

The Foundation works closely with wealth managers and financial advisors like yourself, every day. Assisting clients in fulfilling their charitable goals is what we have in common – so we want to help our philanthropic partners in whatever way possible. 

For more details, see our Investment Alliance Program Guide or contact Natalie Wolf at nwolf@fftc.org.