The Endowment Impact Benchmark (EIB) serves as a critical tool for endowments and foundations seeking to align their investments with sustainable and impact-driven practices. By providing a structured framework for assessment, the EIB enables institutions to measure and enhance their approach to sustainable investing, promoting accountability and progress within the sector.

The EIB is a comprehensive assessment, rating, and benchmarking framework for endowments and foundations based on four pillars – strategy, governance, management, and transparency. The primary goals of the EIB are to enable institutions to understand their performance in sustainable and impact investing, receive actionable recommendations for improvement, and facilitate peer benchmarking in the pursuit of excellence.

The EIB is specifically tailored for endowments, considering their unique challenges and stakeholder dynamics. By reflecting the nuances of endowment operations, the EIB stands out as a comprehensive and targeted tool for sustainable investing evaluation. The EIB is also designed to align with emerging standards and frameworks in the sustainable and impact investing field, including the Principles for Responsible Investment, the Operating Principles for Impact Management, the Impact Management Project, and AASHE STARS.

An EIB rating serves as a valuable asset for endowments, providing a clear 3rd party verified assessment of their performance against sustainable investing criteria and best practices that can be used to communicate with stakeholders and the general public. Endowments can also opt to participate anonymously if they do not want a public rating, while still benefiting from the assessment, the tailored feedback for improvement, and the capability to benchmark against peers.

By offering insights, actionable recommendations, and the opportunity for peer comparison, EIB ratings empower institutions to communicate their impact, drive continuous improvement, and showcase leadership in sustainable investment practices.

The EIB values data privacy and ownership, ensuring that all information provided during the assessment process is handled with utmost confidentiality and security. IEN has engaged BlueMark, a leading impact verification firm, to conduct the assessments.  BlueMark has experience, expertise and strong protocols for maintaining data security and confidentiality.  Institutions can trust that their data is safeguarded and used solely for the purposes of assessment and improvement.

Completing the EIB assessment involves a structured process that includes a series of three virtual meetings with BlueMark — a kickoff call, a check-in call, and a final report out — over a 4-5 week period.  Institutions complete a questionnaire and provide documentation that supports their responses. There are 32 scored questions and 21 ‘supplemental’ data-only questions. BlueMark then evaluates the responses against the documentation provided as an evidence base and verifies the results.  The time commitment to complete the process over the 4-5 week time period will vary by endowment but is estimated to be around 10+ hours in total.

The cost of participation in the EIB is structured to ensure accessibility for institutions of varying sizes and capacities. Fees range from $5,000-$13,000 based on Assets Under Management (AUM), with sliding scale discounts and complementary participation options available for HBCUs and other under-resourced institutions.  For specific details on participation fees, reach out to info@intentionalendowments.org.

Participating in the EIB offers a myriad of benefits, including access to a structured assessment framework, actionable recommendations for improvement, peer benchmarking opportunities, and the ability to showcase commitment to sustainable and impact investing. Institutions can leverage their EIB participation for internal strategy refinement and external recognition.

Through the EIB, institutions engage in benchmarking against industry standards, receive valuable feedback on their sustainable investing practices, obtain ratings based on performance, and have the opportunity for recognition and acknowledgment for their dedication to sustainable impact investing practices.

There are a limited number of spots for participants each year. If your institution is interested, please email info@intentionalendowments.org and the IEN team will respond to set up a call to provide more details.  If there are spots available and your institution is a fit for the EIB, the respective parties will sign an MOU to confirm participation. The 3rd party verification team at BlueMark will then be in touch to schedule a start time for the assessment that works for all parties, which will take place over a 4-5 week time period.