Endowment talk:Bylaws of the Wikimedia Endowment

Board standards paragraph missing re Investments

The following is the beginning of Article III of the Bylaws, Section 15: Investments (emphasis mine):

"Except with respect to assets held for use or used directly in carrying out this corporation's public or charitable activities, in managing and investing this corporation's investments, the Board shall adhere to the standards set forth in Paragraph A above, and shall consider both the charitable purposes of this corporation, and:
(i) general economic conditions..."

There is no Paragraph A in the document. I did a word search on the page.

There is an item (a) in Section 13 of Article III but it is merely one sentence in length. It doesn't pertain to standards as mentioned in the excerpt I copied:

"Section 13: Telephone and Electronic Meetings
... (a) each director participating in the meeting can communicate with all of the other directors concurrently;"

Is Paragraph A missing? Is it still to be determined? Perhaps it is present but mislabeled?--FeralOink (talk) 15:33, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Missing policy?

There is a list of policies for the endowment in the right margin of the bylaws. One is missing. Where is the Investment Policy? I found a reference to it in Article IV, Section 5 of the Bylaws:

"The Investment Committee shall act in accordance with this corporation's investment policies and any committee charter that may apply to it, as may be amended by the Board from time to time."

I perused the Investment Committee page but didn't find anything indicating that an investment policy exists. An investment policy would typically include some or all of the following: Allowed asset types, asset allocation mix, minimum corporate bond quality (or perhaps only bond funds due to high transaction fees), split between domestic and international equities if any, expected or desired return rate/hurdle, if hedging for inflation risk is permitted, risk appetite and limits.

The WMF Endowment has had custody of the approximately $110 million of funds since June 2023. I presume there has been WMF oversight of this money during the past three or four months, and at the present time. Perhaps the WMF Endowment has an investment policy that it does not disclose to Wikipedians. I would find that reassuring as opposed to not having any investment policy in place at all.--FeralOink (talk) 17:36, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

The investment policy can be found on Meta. We are in the process of redoing our investment policy as part of operationalizing the Endowment. There will be an update published following the next Endowment Board meeting in February 2024. JAntonio (WMF) (talk) 18:49, 13 December 2023 (UTC)