2017 Mid-Year Report: Balentine's Community Involvement

From day one, Balentine has believed in giving back to the communities through which we earn our living, simply because we believe it’s the right thing to do. In the early years of Balentine & Company, we built several houses for homeless families in conjunction with an organization called Charis Community Housing. On six consecutive Saturdays during the fall, our staff and clients constructed homes in the inner city of Atlanta. We witnessed the tears of joy these families experienced when moving into their own homes for the very first time. Our outreach continued in later years with the establishment of the Balentine & Company Foundation.

Community involvement remains a central tenant of our firm’s culture. We encourage employees to be active members of the local community and to assume leadership positions on nonprofit boards. As a new resident of Atlanta, Client Administrative Associate Christina Callesis formalized our community service offering, learning what causes Balentine employees care most about and helping pair them with relevant service opportunities. As a result, today every member of our team is engaged with the community.

At Balentine, our partners lead by example. After two years of “sleeping out” and raising funds for the Covenant House of Georgia, Head of Relationship Management Brittain Prigge was recently asked to join the board of directors. Last summer, CIO Adrian Cronje was elected to serve on the board of trustees and chair the investment committee of Agnes Scott College, and this spring CEO Robert Balentine and his wife, Betty, received the 2017 Preservation Hero Award from the Library of American Landscape History for their work with Southern Highlands Reserve.

Whether it’s finding a cause about which you’re passionate or volunteering as a group, when people work together for a greater purpose it creates camaraderie and an esprit de corps. Unlike many of our industry peers, 46% of our staff are millennials. We’ve been intentional about helping this next generation understand the impact of what we do professionally in managing wealth and stewarding assets, and the effect it has on our clients and our community.

Below is a full list of not-for-profit and charitable organizations which our firm and individual employees supported in 2016-17:

• A+ Squash
• Agnes Scott College
• Alliance Theatre
• Alzheimer’s Association
• American Heart Association
• Atlanta Botanical Garden
• Atlanta Charity Clays
• Atlanta Community Food Bank
• Autism Speaks
• Back on My Feet
• Boothbay Region YMCA
• Boys & Girls Clubs
• Canterbury School
• Cary Area EMS
• Charis Community Housing
• Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta
• College Park Historical Society
• Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta
• Community Sustainability Enterprise
• Covenant House of Georgia
• Cystic Fibrosis Foundation
• Rivers Education Foundation
• Elachee Nature Science Center
• Extra Life
• Families First
• Fellowship of Christians in Universities and Schools (FOCUS)
• The Garden Conservancy
• Georgia Prevention Project
• Habitat for Humanity
• Honduras Outreach
• Horizons Atlanta
• JDRF Piedmont Triad Chapter
• Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta
• Kiwanis Club of Atlanta
• The Lawrenceville School
• LEAD Atlanta
• LifeLine Animal Project
• North Carolina Museum of History
• North Carolina Symphony
• Marbles Kids Museum
• Morrisville Fire Department
• Oglethorpe University
• PAWS
• Partnership Against Domestic Violence
• Preservation Chapel Hill
• Rainbow Village
• Rotary Club of Atlanta
• Saint Mary’s School
• Second Helpings Atlanta
• Shepherd Center
• Southern Highlands Reserve
• Transylvania County Hospital
• United Way of Atlanta
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Washington & Lee University
• The Westminster Schools
• Woodberry Forest School
• Woodruff Arts Center