Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Investing Cohousing Funds

[Neil Planchon (neil]

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message below.  It was posted by Neil of the Cohousing-L management team 
<cohousing-l-owner [at] cohousing.org <mailto:cohousing-l-owner [at] 
cohousing.org>>

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A few things I am curious about regarding Heartwood Cohousing's investment 
strategy:

(1) How do you decide how much to invest in each asset class and for how long 
that money will be invested?

(2) Who is responsible for making buy and sell decisions? What are this 
person's qualifications? Perhaps you hire an outside firm to manage your 
investment portfolio?

(3) Do you re-balance your portfolio on a regular basis? In other words, do you 
keep it at 25/50/25 (cash/bonds/stocks)? If so, when you sell, do you pay the 
resulting taxes out of your operating account or your reserve account?

(4) Did the whole community consent to your investment strategy? Or was it left 
to the Board or Finance committee to make the decision for the community? If 
Board/Finance decided, what happens when membership in those groups changes and 
the new people have different ideas about an investment strategy? If the 
community made the decision, what happens if/when a risk-averse new member 
expresses a strong objection to the existing strategy?

(5) How did you decide on the Vanguard family of funds? Great family, low 
expense ratios, etc., but were there folks in your community who pushed for 
socially responsible investing, and if so, how did you sort that out?

It's interesting to hear about different approaches cohousing communities are 
taking when it comes to investing reserve funds. Would love to hear more!

Kaye Blesener,
Treasurer, Columbia Ecovillage
Portland, OR