The Intentional Endowments Network (IEN) is a peer-learning network that supports institutions in exploring how these topics impact their capital pools, including: endowments at colleges and universities, endowments at foundations and other institutions, and retirement funds.
Join our community of 250+ active member organizations to learn from peers, gain access to exclusive resources, and gauge progress with our assessment and benchmarking tools.
IEN works globally (with a focus on the U.S. and Canada) to support stakeholders across the financial system (with a focus on endowments & foundations) in addressing financial risk and uncovering investment opportunities.
We advance education and implementation across topics and capital pools through the following core strategies:
We recognize that diversity enhances organizational innovation and effectiveness. We are strategic about not discriminating against any group, regardless of cognitive, demographic, and other dimensions of diversity. We reject the zero-sum paradigm, defined as "the idea that progress for some of us must come at the expense of others," and recognize the benefits we gain when people come together to accomplish what we simply can't do on our own.
Read more about IEN's Culture of Inclusivity.
Endowments have a unique opportunity where doing the right thing for the climate – reducing their exposure to stranded carbon asset risk, and investing solutions – is also the smart thing for their investment portfolios.
– Bob Litterman
Chair, Risk Committee
Kepos Capital LP
We maintain an archive of over 80 past IEN webinars, available to IEN members here.
The 2026 IEN Virtual Forum brought together asset owners, investment professionals, legal scholars, and mission-driven institutions across three days of conversation, questions, and shared learning — tackling key themes such as the clean energy transition, responsible AI investing, holistic fiduciary duty, systems-level investing and justice-centered investing.
As a part of IEN's Fiduciary Duty for Climate Justice Initiative, we are sharing recaps of Chatham House rules conversations and presentations without attribution. You can learn more this initiative by joining our email list, becoming an IEN Member, and staying up to date on our upcoming events. This conversation centered on the evolution of fiduciary duty in institutional investing, with particular focus on how systems-level thinking can — and should — inform what it means to be a prudent investor today. The discussion drew on perspectives from legal, institutional investment, and mission-aligned investing communities.
The 2025 Annual Forum, hosted by the Intentional Endowments Network, took place last month at Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland. This two-day event brought together leaders in higher education, sustainable investing, and community engagement to discuss how to maintain intentional investing momentum across institutions.