A responsible investor What are our guiding principles for how we invest our endowment?

The Health Foundation is funded by a large endowment. This enables us to be entirely independent and to continue the work of the Health Foundation into the foreseeable future, bringing about better health and health care for all.

We recognise the importance of being a responsible investor, and have developed some guiding principles for how we invest our endowment, based on our values as an organisation. These principles act as an overarching framework to our investment strategy and guide how we invest our funds in the following three ways.

1. Act as a responsible investor

Our guiding principles for responsible investment clearly inform how our endowment is managed and support its ambition to reach net zero by 2035 and increase its impact against the UN Sustainable Development Goals 3: Good health and wellbeing and 13: Climate Action.

2. Work with investment managers

We work closely with those responsible for investing our endowment, and provide challenge where necessary, to ensure their environmental, social and governance policies and engagement practices align with the Foundation’s mission and values.

3. Emphasise positive engagement over exclusion

As a responsible asset owner, we employ a strategy of positive engagement over exclusion. This means, where possible, we invest and work alongside investment managers and organisations to bring about positive change, as long as there is no conflict of interest within the field of public health and health care.

Investment oversight

Our investments are overseen by our investment committee. They are delegated by our board of governors to oversee the management of the endowment portfolio and the integration of responsible investment practices.