Key Takeaways
- • Ares Management, led by Joel Holsinger (Co-Head of Alternative Credit), has created "Promote Giving," a new investment model that commits at least 5% of performance fees to charitable donations, aligning fund performance with philanthropic impact.
- • The Promote Giving initiative has secured $35 billion in assets under management across founding signatory asset managers, demonstrating institutional investor appetite for performance-linked charitable giving structures.
- • Holsinger serves as Co-Chair of the Ares Charitable Foundation and chairs the operating committee, positioning him as the architect of a model designed to enable larger-scale "giving back" among alternative asset managers without compromising fund performance.
- • The model structurally ties charitable contributions to manager performance fees rather than investor capital, ensuring that philanthropic commitments are funded by firm profits, not LP returns, addressing a key structural concern in combining charity with fund management.
- • Multiple leading asset managers have signed onto the Promote Giving framework as founding signatories, signaling broader institutional acceptance of performance-linked philanthropy as standard practice in alternative credit and related strategies.
Summary
Joel Holsinger, Partner and Co-Head of Ares Management's Alternative Credit Group, has spearheaded the development of "Promote Giving," a novel investment framework that integrates charitable giving directly into fund performance economics. The model commits participating managers to donate at least 5% of their performance fees—commonly known as "carry"—to charitable causes, creating a mechanism through which asset managers can expand philanthropic impact while maintaining fiduciary duty to investors.
The Promote Giving initiative has achieved significant institutional traction, with $35 billion in assets under management currently operating under this structure across multiple founding signatory firms. This scale demonstrates that institutional investors and alternative asset managers view performance-linked philanthropy as compatible with competitive fund economics and returns. The framework is particularly noteworthy because charitable contributions are funded exclusively from managers' performance fees rather than from investor capital or fund returns, a structural distinction that addresses potential conflicts of interest in alternative investment management.
Holsinger, who joined Ares in 2019 from Fortress Investment Group (where he was a Partner in the Credit Group), has embedded the charitable framework across Ares' family of funds. His appointment as Co-Chair of the Ares Charitable Foundation underscores the firm's commitment to the model. The initiative focuses on global health and education charities, aligning with institutional investor expectations around responsible wealth management and ESG-adjacent commitments that do not compromise investment performance.
The Promote Giving model addresses a structural question in modern alternative asset management: whether philanthropy can coexist with profit optimization. By tying donations to performance fee economics rather than requiring capital commitments from investors, the framework allows managers to "give back in a bigger way," in Holsinger's framing, while preserving the economic alignment that makes carry-based compensation models functional. As more managers sign on as founding signatories, the initiative is establishing a new institutional standard for charitable commitment in alternative credit and related strategies.
The Promote Giving initiative has achieved significant institutional traction, with $35 billion in assets under management currently operating under this structure across multiple founding signatory firms. This scale demonstrates that institutional investors and alternative asset managers view performance-linked philanthropy as compatible with competitive fund economics and returns. The framework is particularly noteworthy because charitable contributions are funded exclusively from managers' performance fees rather than from investor capital or fund returns, a structural distinction that addresses potential conflicts of interest in alternative investment management.
Holsinger, who joined Ares in 2019 from Fortress Investment Group (where he was a Partner in the Credit Group), has embedded the charitable framework across Ares' family of funds. His appointment as Co-Chair of the Ares Charitable Foundation underscores the firm's commitment to the model. The initiative focuses on global health and education charities, aligning with institutional investor expectations around responsible wealth management and ESG-adjacent commitments that do not compromise investment performance.
The Promote Giving model addresses a structural question in modern alternative asset management: whether philanthropy can coexist with profit optimization. By tying donations to performance fee economics rather than requiring capital commitments from investors, the framework allows managers to "give back in a bigger way," in Holsinger's framing, while preserving the economic alignment that makes carry-based compensation models functional. As more managers sign on as founding signatories, the initiative is establishing a new institutional standard for charitable commitment in alternative credit and related strategies.
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