(2 minute read)
Published: 28 May 2025
Written by: Sufina Ahmad, Director
In March 2022, John Ellerman Foundation committed, as part of our strategy for 2022 to 2025, that we would take a decision on our time horizon. We felt that it would allow us to:
- Determine our annual spend rate more flexibly, including increasing or decreasing our spend rate by adjusting our spend from the endowment more easily in response to unexpected and unplanned for circumstances.
- Make better informed decisions about the way in which our endowment is invested.
- Ensure our Investment Objective is not inconsistent with the expected lifespan of the endowment, the agreed risk level and the rate of grant spending. In 2022, we agreed that the Foundation would have a definitive position on its time horizon by 2025 – when the current strategy cycle comes to an end – if not sooner.
There’s a bit of background to all of this and we released an interim statement about this in June 2023, which you can read by clicking here. In short, back in January 2012 the Foundation moved from existing in perpetuity to existing in the long term, which was defined as ‘in excess of 30 years’. These discussions were motivated mainly by the fact that we do not retain any significant living links to our founder. In 2020, it became clear that there were multiple interpretations of this decision across the staff team and the Board and it was impacting us operationally.
Since 2022, we have considered our time horizon in detail at different points, including through externally facilitated meetings in 2022 and 2023 and significant data and research presented on the topic. It has also been a key consideration when considering and developing our strategy for 2025 onwards.
Making any kind of decision in this age of significant disruption and interconnected global threats affecting people, society and the natural world can feel fraught with difficulty. You’re confronted with so much choice, and the consequences of the decisions you make can feel lasting.
In March 2025, the Foundation took its decision, realising that by doing so we would have greater clarity – benefitting both us and those we work with. This decision was not a straightforward one. We had a range of views and interpretations of the insights we have gathered on this subject shared by staff and Trustees. However, we are pleased to have been able to come to a decision on this important topic.
We have taken the decision to move the Foundation back to an in perpetuity (i.e. with the intention to exist forever) time horizon, with the recognition that the Foundation has the right to review this again as part of all future strategy review processes. Moving back to an in perpetuity model is based on our view that this is the option that allows us to make the most meaningful impact on the issues we care about both through our current strategy and our next strategy for 2025 to 2030.
The causes and issues we care about require multi-generational approaches. The impacts of our work are discernible now, but it may be many decades before they result in the kind of change we need. In our strategy for 2022 to 2025 we talked about our commitment to accountability and wanting to become an endowed charitable grantmaker that understood its impact and was able to demonstrate its effectiveness. We feel more confident now that our work across our grantmaking and investing is making a difference, but we know that the ambitions we have mean that we must also give ourselves the time to pursue the long-term impact that we are seeking.
Since I have been at the Foundation, I have seen our options, and therefore our choices and the decisions we need to make, grow exponentially in almost every area of our work. The number of applicants wanting us to fund them, the volume of interest and applications for any job we post, the growing market of fund managers and social investors that feel they can achieve our ambitions set out in our Investment Policy and Social Investment Policy, and the numbers of fellow funders and practitioners that we can learn from across the different areas that we work in. Choice can signal opportunity, abundance even. Decisions signal intent, they are a determination. As a Foundation we are determined to be here for the long term and to do our bit.