Financial & Governance

Scenic Hudson manages our endowment and other funds to provide the resources needed over the long term to accomplish our mission. In the management of our endowment, we strive to maintain alignment with the organization’s mission, while working to preserve the buying power of the investment portfolio. Our investments are overseen by a committee of Scenic Hudson and The Scenic Hudson Land Trust board members and others with substantial investment expertise. We also are advised by investment professionals with deep experience working with nonprofit endowments.

Like many of our peer organizations in conservation, our investments are held largely in mutual, index or other comingled funds, in which we do not control the individual stocks or fixed-income instruments chosen by the managers.

Scenic Hudson does not make direct investments in companies with which we are engaged in litigation or are in active opposition to the companies’ actions or policies.  Neither does Scenic Hudson make direct investments in companies whose primary focus is fossil fuels . Such investments presently comprise a de minimis percentage of our endowment, and the Investment Committee regularly reviews Scenic Hudson’s investments with the objective of ultimately eliminating all fossil fuel investments, as may be consistent with long-term investment objectives as related to the fulfillment of our mission.

We also recognize that our endowment allows us to consider environmentally sustainable investment strategies. As this market evolves, we are committed to evaluating these strategies against our return objectives in the context of the long-term success of Scenic Hudson.