2023 FY Endowment Report

2023 Landon Endowment Report

From the Chair

DEAR LANDON COMMUNITY,

I hope this letter finds you well. As we reflect on the financial markets’ performance for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2023, it is evident that the year was marked by a series of dynamic events that influenced global economic landscapes and investment strategies. Our focus is on achieving sustainable real growth of the endowment and the contributions it makes to the School over an extended time horizon.

The endowment at 6/30/23 was at $24.1million, a nominal high, and it has tripled in size over the last ten years. The forward real return forecasts for the next ten years has decreased to ~3% on a 70/30 equity/bond portfolio allocation. We reduced the draw the endowment pays to the School this fiscal year, and we implemented an inflation adjusted banded spending model which we believe is the best way to grow the real value of both the endowment and the draw over the long term. Although the endowment has made a lot of progress in the last decade, it remains about half the size of our peer schools.

The endowment committee is comprised of a committed group that includes professionals with endowment, asset management, family office, private equity, and legal experience. We have partnered with the endowment group of Vanguard, a global capital markets leader with a low fee structure. Collectively, this group is a good steward for your donations to the endowment.

As we begin a new year, we find ourselves humbled and inspired by the incredible impact your generosity has had on our School. Your commitment to support Landon through endowment has fostered positive change, advancing our mission, and ensuring a brighter future.

This year has been marked by numerous achievements and milestones made possible by your steadfast dedication. During fiscal year 2022-2023, Landon received $1,040,782 in endowment gifts. Through your foresight and commitment, we have been able to make significant strides toward our goals.

One of the most rewarding aspects of your contributions is its direct impact on the boys, their teacher-coach-mentors, and administrators. Your generosity has empowered us to provide scholarships, enhance academic programs, and support increased professional development, creating an environment where students can flourish and reach their full potential.

We recognize the importance of transparency and accountability in managing the resources you have entrusted to us. We are committed to responsible stewardship and ensuring your philanthropic vision aligns with our actions. This report provides information on financial stewardship, investment strategy, and notable financial achievements. Additionally, the stories outlined in this report are a testament to the lasting impact of your investment in Landon.

In closing, we extend our deepest gratitude. Your belief in our mission and commitment to making a positive difference is appreciated.

Go Bears,

Matt Holleran ’85

Chair, Endowment Committee Member, Board of Trustees

BOARD OF TRUSTEES 2022–23

Chair

Alex Baldwin, P ’18

President

Jim Neill, P ’24

Vice Chair

Olivier Kamanda ’99

Secretary

William Magruder ’92

Treasurer

Jeffrey Freed, P ’11 ’13 ’18

Trustees

Dwaine Alleyne ’00

Jeffrey Ansary ’92, P ’28

Kristen Best, P ’23 ’25

John Botti

Donald Dell ’56

Jean-Marie Fernandez, P ’24

Nicholas Freeman ’09

Debra Graham, P ’18 ’20

Laura Hoffman, P ’17 ’21 ’24

Burnell Holland III ’01

Matthew Holleran ’85

Beverly Hudnut, P ’11

Edward Lamade ’00

Edward Prince ’84

Inger Rosner, P ’20 ’23 ’27

Thomas Scott ’85

Brooke Seawell ’65

Harmar Thompson ’90, P ’31 ’33

Michael Voris ’95

Lisa Ellis Williams, P ’24

Trustees Emeriti

*Peter FitzGerald, Sr. ’50, P ’83 ’86, GP ’13 ’19 ’21

Knight Kiplinger ’65, P ’99

Larry Lamade ’65, P ’00 ’03

Jack Leachman ’69, P ’94 ’95, GP ’30

Samuel Lehrman, H ’09, P ’11

Rusty Lindner ’72, P ’15

“H” denotes Honorary “P” denotes Parent.

“GP” denotes Grandparent. * Deceased

Landon’s Endowment

LASTING SUPPORT FOR OUR BOYS

Landon’s endowment is the lifeblood of the School. Unrestricted endowment gifts allow Landon to deploy resources where they are needed most. But the endowment also consists of individual funds established for a variety of educational purposes. The endowed funds are pooled together so the portfolio can be managed as one entity. The endowment is critical to minimizing tuition increases as well as maximizing funding for teachers and students. It is designed to keep the principal amount intact while using the investment income to improve the quality of education. Endowment growth is the best way to ensure Landon School remains a top-tier boys school in the Washington metro area and nationwide, and our goal to increase the endowment depends primarily on philanthropy.

GLOBAL ENDOWMENT MANAGEMENT

Vanguard Institutional Advisory Services has been advising Landon since 2019. Vanguard is positioned to serve Landon School’s mission at the current time due to its extensive institutional resources and low fee structure. The Vanguard team is led by a senior investment consultant, who provides quarterly investment updates to the Investment Committee and is accessible at any time between meetings.

GOVERNANCE

The Board of Trustees establishes investment objectives focused on generating the best risk-adjusted returns that will support Landon School’s financial needs, while preserving the endowment’s real purchasing power in perpetuity. These objectives are also balanced against the need for sufficient liquidity to meet the School’s annual spending draw.

The Endowment Committee is a standing committee of the Board of Trustees. It is tasked with advising the Board and Landon administration on matters relating to the School’s endowment. It also monitors how the endowment is managed, how the funds raised

Endowment Committee

Jeff Ansary ’92 – Managing director at Ansaco LLC, a private merchant bank organized in 2014 focused on the middle market in manufacturing, technology, and commercial real estate.

Alex Baldwin, P ’18 – Chief legal officer of Dexian, a global staffing, IT consulting, and managed services firm based in McLean, VA.

Donald Dell ’56 – First sports agent in professional tennis, representing Arthur Ashe, Stan Smith, Jimmy Connors, and Ivan Lendl. He founded professional Services (ProServ), one of the nation’s first sports marketing firms, in 1970.

Laura Hoffman, P ’17 ’21 ’24 – Vice president and treasurer of the Healy Foundation, a private grant-making foundation active in Maryland, Florida, and New Mexico.

Matt Holleran ’85 – Founder and managing partner of Cloud Apps, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm specializing in investing in the cloud business application market.

are deployed, and procedures relating to key Landon policies. It selects and monitors investment manager(s) to ensure the endowment’s allocation, investments, liquidity, risk, and returns are within the parameters set forth in the Investment Policy Statement.

The committee consists primarily of trustees (no fewer than three), one of whom is the chair. The committee may also include non-trustee members chosen for their relevant experience. The chair of the Board, the head of school, the chief financial officer, the controller, and the director of development are members ex officio.

Ted Lamade ’00 – Managing director of the $1.2 billion endowment that supports the Carnegie Institution for Science, a scientific research organization based in Washington, D.C.

Nii Amaah Ofosu-Amaah ’00 – Managing director at Berkshire Partners, a Boston-based private equity firm focused on investing in middle-market businesses.

Bijan Salehizadeh ’91 – Managing director at NaviMed Capital, a Washington D.C.-based private equity firm focused on investing in healthcare businesses.

Brooke Seawell ’65 – Venture partner with NEA, focusing on software, systems, and internet investments. He serves on the board of directors of NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA), Tenable (NASDAQ: TENB), Eargo (NASDAQ: EAR), GoodLeap, Malwarebytes, and Technical Communities.

Brien White, P ’26 – Chief operating officer for Brown Advisory’s U.S. private client, endowments, and foundations business.

2023 Endowment Snapshot

ENDOWMENT CATEGORY AS OF 6/30/2023

Growing the endowment is a priority. Landon’s $24 million endowment is less than half of the endowments at other leading all-boys schools. Endowment gifts produce income in perpetuity.

The Board of Trustees approves the endowment’s spending rate annually. In 2023, the Board of Trustees approved a formal endowment spending policy that takes into account various factors while remaining focused on the goal of growing both the long-term value of the endowment and of the endowment’s distributions. Actual endowment return earned in excess of distributions under this policy is reinvested as part of the School’s endowment.

This chart shows how spending draws are carefully managed so as not to draw from the principal. of the endowment.

The Campaign for Landon has exceeded its endowment goal. As of January 15, 2024 gifts to the endowment total $11.4 million which includes $4.52 million in planned gifts.

Along with gifts to unrestricted endowment, donors have established:

4 new endowed chairs

7 new financial aid/ scholarship funds

3 funds for professional development

1 fund to support athletic programming

Landon is grateful to all our donors who have supported Landon’s mission through gifts that ensure a robust financial aid program, an ongoing commitment to our faculty and their professional development, and to programs that support Landon’s position as a leader in all-boys education.

Asset Allocation and Investment Performance

The endowment utilizes a total return strategy, which represents a combination of both capital appreciation and current yield (interest and dividends). Landon’s chosen investment manager is tasked with achieving returns that equal (or exceed) the combination of Landon’s spending rate and the rate of inflation (net of fees).

The Landon School endowment portfolio’s current asset allocation is shown here. The investment manager uses a diversified mixture of equities and fixed income. The asset allocation strategy is reviewed regularly to ensure the portfolio’s objectives are met.

Our Commitment to Boys

PERMANENT FUNDING FOR PEOPLE AND PROGRAMS

One of the key appeals of donating to endowment is permanency and perpetuity; it is the gift that keeps on giving,” says Andy Arnold ’78 . “With an endowment gift, donors extend the impact of their generosity well beyond their lifetime, and a strong endowment ensures there is an enduring source of funding for the School today and in the future.”

A strong endowment provides funding each year that Landon can use to provide scholarships, attract and retain the best faculty, and invest in leading-edge programs.

Growing Landon’s endowment is critical to maximizing funding for these areas and the overall operating budget. A strong endowment helps elevate the quality of the Landon experience from, as Andy says, “very good to extraordinary.”

Andy worked in investor relations at AOL and has served on multiple boards of trustees for nonprofits. He was asked to join Landon’s Board in 2014 and serve on the Endowment Committee. During his six-year Board tenure, he chaired the Endowment Committee and was a driving force in the stewardship process the School now follows. The team he led drafted an investment policy statement and focused on money managers who could generate superior investment results without taking on undo risk.

Andy explains, “Landon takes its responsibility very seriously of being a good steward of donors’ generous contributions. Often, donors are establishing a fund with their names on it, and they are trusting Landon to invest the funds well and use the funds as intended to support Landon.”

The best way to grow endowment to meet Landon’s goals is through philanthropy. Andy and his wife have supported an area close to their hearts by establishing the Helen and Anderson J. Arnold ’78 Endowed Fund for Academic Enrichment

This fund provides financial resources to support Landon’s Learning Center. The center and the learning specialists who are part of it work with students as well as faculty and administrators to advance the quality of teaching at Landon.

“At Landon, we recognize and embrace the various learning styles of our students,” says Director of Learning Support Colleen Tully. “The gift from Helen and Andy Arnold supports the Learning Center’s mission of providing resources and support to students, faculty, and families to optimize the learning experience for all. One recent example is a visit from Dr. Rebecca Resnik, a noted expert in neuropsychological assessments, who came to speak to our faculty about executive functioning and attention and shared meaningful ways for our faculty to support all our students.”

The Arnolds made one of the largest single endowment gifts to The Campaign for Landon. We are grateful to Helen and Andy Arnold for their endowment gift and to all who have supported our endowment goal. Their gifts create a lasting legacy.

CLASSMATES HONOR

YOGI TODD BREIER ’82

When planning for their 40th reunion, the Class of 1982 chose to establish a scholarship in honor of their classmate Todd Breier ’82 who passed away in 2018.

“Todd was an unquestioned leader of our class - both on and off the playing fields. He had an ability to transcend the typical cliques that are prevalent in high school making all feel welcome whether as part of our class or part of any team,” shares Scott Johnston ’82, one of the lead organizers of the Class of 1982’s efforts.

Known inside and outside the classroom for tenaciously attacking any argument, it was in the athletic realm where his intensity burned brightest. As a three-year starter at quarterback, Todd led the Class of 1982 to Landon’s last undefeated, untied football season finishing 9-0. In addition, Todd was a three-year starter on the basketball team and a starter as both a midfielder and defender on the lacrosse team and continued in college as a starting defenseman at the University of Virginia.

If his life at Landon was one of great success, it was the life he chose after Landon that resonated deeply with his classmates and is the impetus behind the special naming of the endowed fund as The Yogi Todd Endowed Scholarship in Honor of Todd Breier ’82. After college, Todd chose a life of adventure as a world traveler. Ultimately, Todd settled in Taiwan where he lived with his beloved wife, Victoria Breier, who provided a peaceful home where he taught English to adult learners and they planned their next adventure together.

As to the title Yogi Todd, it is a term of respect and reflects the meaning of the word yogi defined as someone who is a unifier or of a spiritual nature, both qualities which Todd possessed. It also reflects his deep commitment to the study of yoga that Todd took up when traveling in India, a practice he continued throughout his life.

The Yogi Todd Endowed Scholarship in Honor of Todd Breier ’82 will be awarded to a Middle or Upper School student who demonstrates academic excellence, active involvement in athletic or extracurricular activities, and has unquestioned personal integrity and character. According to George Pappas ’82, “Todd represented the best of us and meant so much to so many. It makes me happy knowing that somewhere on campus his spirit, our spirit, will continue to live on, running free on the playing fields and in the classroom.”

LEAVING A LASTING LEGACY

There are many ways to make a meaningful gift to Landon School’s endowment, such as cash gifts and pledges payable over a term of five years. Another popular method of giving is through a bequest.

A bequest is the most frequent type of planned gift. Your estate receives a charitable deduction for the full amount given, so your heirs pay no estate tax on the gift. You may choose to make:

a percentage bequest where you allocate a set percentage of your estate to Landon;

a specific bequest where you specify a set amount from your estate either in cash, a set allocation of securities, or a piece of real estate; or

a residual bequest where you allocate the residual amount of your estate after all other named beneficiaries.

We believe in boys.

Help us invest in the experience that will bring out their best.

Every gift to the endowment reaffirms our mission and supports our commitment and dedication to the students, faculty, and values that set Landon apart.

301.320.1016

6101 Wilson Lane

Bethesda, Maryland 20817