Where to find investment advice for your charity

What is investment advice?

There are two types of advice available – independent and restricted:

Independent advice – where advisers can offer advice on the full range of products and service providers available.
Restricted advice – where advisers offer advice on a limited selection of products and service providers.

All advisers have to be approved and authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). For more information about investment advice, visit:

Charity Commission – CC14

Why should my charity seek advice?

If your charity is investing its funds, it’s vital that your trustees understand their responsibilities as outlined in the Charity Commission’s CC14 guidance. This may include seeking expert investment advice when considering investing your charity’s money or reviewing your current investments.

You could have experience on your Board or within the organisation, but often an external professional view might offer a more objective approach.

What makes a good adviser?

Choosing your professional investment adviser is one of the most important decisions you’ll make for your charity. As well as putting your charity’s needs first, there are several things to consider when choosing an adviser:

• Are they authorised and qualified to give investment advice?
• Do they have a good reputation; confident and trustworthy?
• Do they have a good support team?
• Are they qualified – do they have experience with charity investing and responsible investing?
• Is their communication good?
• Do they have a clear strategy for your investments and take a holistic view?
• Are they proactive?
• Do they have experience in the charity market?

What questions should I consider?

Every charity’s needs and objectives are different, so we’ve put together some key points to cover when seeking advice:

New investors

• How can we ensure that our investments meet our charity’s goals and mission?
• Do they meet our financial objectives?
• Are they within our acceptable level of risk?
• Do they meet our ethical investment policy?
• How long should we invest for?

Existing investors

• How often should we review our investment portfolio?
• Do our funds have a strategy to adapt to changes in the commercial and political world?
• Do our investments still reflect our objectives eg overall performance, income and capital returns and risk?
• How our fund manager is performing; are they communicating well, reporting thoroughly and complying with our investment policy?