Scrutiny of hedge funds may hit foundations

In case you don't want to watch former presidents and current world leaders discuss the potential of philanthropy, here's a link to coverage of today's Senate Finance Committee (SFC) hearings. The committee is looking into investments by nonprofits in offshore hedge funds. You can watch it live by clicking the Real Player button on this page.

Given earlier SFC attention to The Robin Hood Foundation's investment portfolio and fee structure, it seems we might have a troublesome potential headline here:

"Exorbitant profits enjoyed by managers of untaxed funds earned by using endowment resources of untaxed organizations"

As hedge funds and private equity firms become the "crowd pleasing punching bag" of campaigning Democrats and Republicans, look for a few of those blows to land on endowment managers. After all, hedge funds don't build those billion dollar funds off of mom and pop investors.

Tags: philanthropy, investing, regulation