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Communication & influence · Simplifying the complex

A trustee on a non-profit endowment board asks why the portfolio holds an options overlay and private credit they don't understand, and wants it in plain terms. How do you explain it without dumbing it down?

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I start from what the endowment is trying to do, not from the instruments — they exist to serve a spending rule, so I frame everything as 'how this protects the payout.

The full answer: structure, worked example, likely follow-up.

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