Girls Preparatory School Endowment

Girls Preparatory School Endowment

Founded in 1906, Girls Preparatory School operates as a private day school for grades 6–12 on a single campus overlooking the Tennessee River. Its endowment, stewarded by a board-level finance committee chaired by Treasurer James Michael Scotchie, exists to fortify the school's educational mission. The fund's capital does not derive from a single family's operating business; it has been built through decades of donor contributions to the institution. Strategy and deployment span multiple asset classes. The endowment participates in early-stage and seed venture, late-stage and expansion venture, buyout, and fund-of-funds vehicles, per Altss research. Geographic focus is inferred to concentrate on US-based managers, given the fund's regional Chattanooga base and board composition, though explicit international mandates are not disclosed. The investment committee, which includes Trustee Betsy Blunt Brown — founder of Pendleton Square Trust Company — brings direct trust and fiduciary expertise to portfolio construction. The fund is estimated at $95.6 million by Altss research, a figure the school does not publicly disclose. Operational leadership sits with CFO Mark Vosskamp, while governance transitioned in July 2025 when Ashley Rowland Davenport took the role of Board Chair. No dedicated investment staff or satellite offices are evident beyond the campus address at 205 Island Avenue. Adjacent vehicles include the Sharon Mills Sustainability Fund and the Tucker Fellows Program, which operate as internal grant-making or programmatic arms rather than co-investment structures. Structural differentiation rests in the trustee-as-investor model. Rather than outsourcing to a consultant, an active board committee — populated by a registered Ameriprise representative and a trust company CEO — directly oversees manager selection and allocation. This hybrid governance fuses fiduciary oversight with investment decision-making, a configuration more common among larger private foundations than secondary-school endowments.