If you serve as a trustee, committee or board member for a non-profit organization, you may be defined as a 'fiduciary' and held to the highest legal and ethical standards for the property entrusted to your care.

Here are some articles that are helpful in fulfilling your fiduciary duty:

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1. What Your Advisor Doesn’t Want You To Ask (2005-09-19)
   Simply put, the term "fiduciary" applies to the more than five million individuals who have the legal responsibility for managing someone else’s money. A fiduciary is required by law to always act in the best interests of their client, beneficiary, or retirement plan participant. Yet, many fiduciaries are not even aware of their legal responsibilities.
   
   
2. Ruling Allows Broker Conflict of Interest (2005-06-06)
   Currently, stockbrokers can offer the same services as Fee-Only financial planners without being accountable to the same fiduciary standards. This exemption to the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 has been called the "Merrill Lynch rule."
   
   
3. How to Monitor Your Financial Advisor (2004-12-20)
   The National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA) offers the following advice about how to protect yourself as you work with a financial advisor.
   
   
4. Donor Advised Funds (2007-02-12)
   Donor Advised Funds offer the charitably inclined new flexibility for managing gifts to charity. By funding an account, donors receive an immediate tax deduction for their contribution and gain the flexibility to direct payouts to charity on their own timetable. However, donor advised accounts are not for everyone. Before funding an account of your own, consider the cost. Using a donor advised fund to manage your charitable donations may actually diminish the tax benefits of giving.
   
   
5. Foundation Series - 5 Mistakes (2006-06-05)
   When endowment funds fall victim to poor management, the results are as bad as they are far reaching. Whether an endowment serves to prop up operating budgets or grow company retirement investments, falling market values trigger a host of undesirable outcomes. In the face of dwindling endowment assets, non-profit organizations are left with little alternative but to cut grants and programs. However, the most egregious failures are those involving retirement funds, bankrupted by poor management.
   
   
6. Rocks and Sand – Keeping Expense Ratios Low (2005-06-13)
   Rocks and sand are the composites of a good portfolio. Good portfolios have low expense ratios and minimal trading costs. Trading costs are the costs of buying a security. Depending on the brokerage house, the cost of a trade averages between $10 and $20. Expense ratios are the percentage of assets used to run a mutual fund, the overhead. We use a technique that keeps each of them as low as possible.
   
   
7. Foundation Series - 4 Asset Allocation (2006-05-29)
   When it comes to predicting your investment returns, nothing influences returns more than your portfolio’s asset allocation mix. It will determine most of your investment outcome. Endowment funds are no exception to this rule. For board members and trustees, choosing an appropriate asset mix is part of fulfilling fiduciary responsibility.
   
   
8. Foundation Series - 1 Fulfilling Your Fiduciary Duty (2006-05-01)
   If you serve as a trustee, committee or board member for a non-profit organization, you may bear more responsibility than you bargained for. Legally, you could be defined as a 'fiduciary' and held to the highest legal and ethical standards for the property entrusted to your care. In fact, you could be held personally liable for your decisions.
   
   
9. Foundation Series - 3 Endowment Spending (2006-05-22)
   Non-profits seeking to establish endowment spending rates may find the task as difficult as the fundraising itself. Setting spending policy remains a balancing act between protecting purchasing power and providing for the spending needs of the institution. Ultimately, the tightrope act becomes a question of inter-generational equity. In other words, "Do we sacrifice the needs of the current generation to that of future generations, or visa versa?"
   
   
10. Be Choosey When Giving to Charity (2007-02-26)
    Do you ever wonder if your gifts to charity are being used as well as they could be? If so, you're not alone. A 2002 study by the Brookings Institution found four out of five Americans doubt that charities are stewarding donations well. And although 83% of U.S. adults report giving to charity in 2006, according to a Wall Street Journal/Harris Interactive poll, the charitably inclined are doing more homework before opening their wallets. Maybe it is time you checked up on your favorite charities before making your next gift.
    
    
11. Using S&P 500 Index Funds Contains Hidden Risks (2004-10-18)
    Many investors tend to make the S&P 500 Index the backbone of their investment portfolio. Others use the S&P 500 as a benchmark to measure the health of the market or their own portfolio. Doing so is a very risky strategy that greatly increases the danger of failing to meet your financial goals.
    
    
12. Foundation Series – 2 Best Practices (2006-05-15)
    Perhaps you have been asked to serve as a board member or trustee for a non-profit organization. Your role as committee member, board member or trustee will likely designate you as a 'fiduciary,' a role with specific legal responsibilities. Certain responsibilities are common to all fiduciaries.
    
    
13. Timing the Market Isn’t All Fun and Games (2005-12-19)
    Market timing is the attempt to switch a significant portion of your assets between different types of investments in an effort to maximize profits. If this is your investment strategy, good luck, because you’ll need it.
    
    
14. The Value of Emphasizing Value Stocks (2005-02-21)
    Value stocks should be over emphasized in your holdings of US stocks both because of their historical averages and the current economic climate. Value stocks are those that have a lower-than-average price as measured by such metrics as price-to-earnings or price-to-book ratios.
    
    
15. Gifting Your Gains Can Save You Money (2003-10-06)
    Americans are a generous people, and this is the time of year when most people do their charitable giving.
    
    

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