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Syntrinsic
Miles launched Syntrinsic after a career advising institutional nonprofit pools, recognizing that boards of grantmaking foundations and charitable endowments...
Syntrinsic
Miles launched Syntrinsic after a career advising institutional nonprofit pools, recognizing that boards of grantmaking foundations and charitable endowments routinely received cookie-cutter portfolios from retail wealth managers. The firm, headquartered in Saratoga Springs, Colorado — effectively the Denver metro area — structured its research and advisory model from inception as a fiduciary exclusively serving 501(c)(3) organizations, charitable trusts, and mission-aligned family partnerships. Syntrinsic manages multi-asset portfolios spanning global equities, fixed income, real assets, and private-alternative allocations, typically implemented through institutional fund vehicles and separately managed accounts. The firm constructs portfolios around each client's spending-policy needs, integrating program-related investments (PRIs) and mission-related investments (MRIs) when the board's investment policy statement authorizes them. In practice that has meant advising clients on allocations to community development financial institutions, affordable-housing debt funds, and public-market ESG mandates, often alongside traditional core-bond and large-cap equity exposures. From its single Colorado office, the firm operates as an RIA with a deliberately narrow client roster — its ADV filings historically show well over 90% of assets attributable to charitable organizations. As of recent disclosures, the practice has no adjacent multi-family office, no proprietary fund-of-funds product, and no retail-wealth division. This concentration is the business identity: board education, spending-policy stress testing, and investment committee governance support remain as central to the engagement as manager selection itself. The firm's structural differentiator is the almost complete alignment of its client base. A conventional RIA serving a mix of retirees, entrepreneurs, and a few endowments must compartmentalize its research process; Syntrinsic's entire investment team researches, debates, and constructs portfolios for a uniform constituency of perpetual-horizon nonprofit institutions. That architecture gives the firm an unusually durable moat in a market where generalist RIAs frequently cycle in and out of the endowment niche.
General information
Firm type
Bank / Wealth / Trust
Year founded
2008
Location
Region
North America
Country
United States
City
Saratoga Springs
Corporate office
Saratoga Springs, CO, United States
Principals
Paul Miles
Founder, CEO & Chief Investment Officer
Anna Tarnow
Managing Director, Client Advisory
Sector focus
Frequently asked questions
Does Syntrinsic serve any client type other than nonprofits and foundations?
Almost none. The firm's ADV disclosures and public positioning indicate that the overwhelming majority of its client assets represent charitable organizations — private foundations, community foundations, donor-advised fund sponsors, and endowments. A small number of pension plans and mission-aligned family trusts round out the client base, but the investment process is built entirely around the perpetual-horizon, spending-policy constraints of tax-exempt institutions.
How does Syntrinsic handle mission-related or impact investments?
Mission alignment is integrated into portfolio construction rather than siloed in a carve-out allocation. When a foundation's investment policy statement permits program-related or mission-related investments, Syntrinsic maps specific balance-sheet resources — often the fixed-income or private-credit allocation — to community development loan funds, affordable-housing vehicles, and sustainability-tilted public equity mandates. The firm views MRIs and PRIs as portfolio instruments to be evaluated on risk-return criteria, not concessionary grants.
What is Syntrinsic's relationship model — do they replace a foundation's investment committee, or augment it?
Augment and educate. Syntrinsic's core engagement model includes preparing board-level investment memos, delivering fiduciary education sessions, stress-testing spending policies, and providing an outsourced CIO function when the foundation lacks internal investment staff. The firm does not require full delegation; many clients retain an active investment committee with Syntrinsic acting as a non-discretionary advisor reporting to the board.
Is Syntrinsic an RIA or a trust company?
It is a federally registered investment advisor (RIA), not a trust company. The firm does not custody assets or serve as a corporate trustee. Client portfolios are held at third-party custodians — typically major institutional platforms such as Charles Schwab or Fidelity — with Syntrinsic retaining discretionary or non-discretionary advisory authority depending on the engagement.
Does the firm run any proprietary fund vehicles or collective investment trusts?
No. Syntrinsic's public disclosures consistently show that all client assets are invested through open-architecture institutional fund vehicles, separately managed accounts, and direct allocations to alternative managers. The firm does not sponsor a fund-of-funds, a private-label ETF, or a pooled endowment vehicle — a structural choice that avoids internal product-push incentives entirely.
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