Charity Investment Governance Principles (CIGP) Series

In our final episode of the series Rachel Titchen and Gail Cunningham talk about openness and accountability. A lot of the focus here is on what a charity can do to ensure wider confidence to other stakeholders by providing access and information around their investments, accounts and wider policies. By ensuring that the trustees are open, will give rise to the fact that they can be held accountable for their actions.

In the penultimate episode focusing on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion sees Rachel Titchen and Gail Cunningham talking through the ways in which all trustee/staff/committee members who are involved in the charity’s investments commit to exploring, understanding and taking action with regard to equity, diversity and inclusion. Although this principle comes with only Recommends, it is a really critical principle, that might take a while to implement effectively, but that will hopefully ensure longer term success of a charity when applied.

Episode 6 of the series has Rachel Titchen and Gail Cunningham cover principle five – Effectiveness. The focus in this principle is around the confidence that each trustee has to make decisions. Ensuring that all trustees are equipped to understand the impact of the decisions they make and the right times to access further training or advice to support. There’s also a good opportunity to focus on how the Board and wider charity team can work together to ensure that everyone is able to provide the right oversight to meet the charity’s purpose.

Rachel Titchen and Gail Cunningham explore the fourth principle on Decision-making, Risk and Control. This principle explores how taking advice on investments is a requirement as set out in the CC14 guidance and the ways trustees should record their decisions when they are being made. The Charity Investment Consulting Partnership’s Trustee guide to accessing Investment Advice is also linked to this principle. One of the key areas of focus in this principle is around setting and publishing your investment policy and how this policy should be clear and complete.

In this episode Rachel Titchen and Gail Cunningham move onto the third principle – Integrity. This principles has a lot of focus on how investments can potentially create reputational risks and how this can be mitigated. There are also a lot of opportunities to further a charity’s purpose through the use of investments, this principle explains how trustees can have more confidence in this decision and can formalize the decision making process.

Rachel Titchen and Gail Cunningham have moved on to the second principle – Leadership. In this principle, they explore how to adopt a delegation framework that best aligns the charity’s investment to their purpose. There’s a focus on understanding that all trustees are jointly responsible for the decisions made around investments and that in some cases it might be appropriate to create investment sub-committees and/or professional providers to support the Trustees.

Rachel Titchen and Gail Cunningham start looking at the first Principle from the CIGP - Purpose of Investments. Here the focus is on ensuring that charities use their investments to benefit the charity’s purpose. The focus here is given to the objectives of the investments and what they are being used to achieve.

Rachel Titchen and Gail Cunningham start the series by exploring the CIGPs and how Trustees and Finance teams should use these principles in practice. The episode covers who the principles have been designed for and what timeframe they are expected to be included in charity practice. Rachel and Gail also explore how difference size charities might want to focus on these principles in different ways.