So we already knew that our endowment returns have been in the negative teens. We knew that Brandeis was facing a 10 Million Dollar Shortfall.
It seems that other elements of the Brandeis financial pantheon are doing even worse.
The Shapiro’s foundation lost half its value. No one knows how much the Shapiros themselves lost. Tom Friedman, member of the board, once owned a part of a 3.6 billion dollar family trust through his wife. That trust now holds less than $25 million.
Just something to keep in mind – compared to some other schools and institutions, a drop of just “in the teens” of endowment value makes our financial management seem to be a model of prudence.
And, this is just me saying, ok, that maybe if we had invested in socially responsible mutual funds we’d have done even better, or maybe not. Maybe we didn’t do so bad because we were already invested in socially responsible companies. The point is, we have no way of knowing.
Hopefully CEER will try and take care of that.