About

Why the desk is still open

Mintcanopy began in a treasury office in 2019, the week a team funded a portfolio tool off a slide that showed returns and hid the fee unit. The name is the cover we wanted over that decision: mint for a record that is still fresh when someone asks, and canopy for shade you can stand under while you read the bill. The desk still publishes the fee, the file a person can export, and the reader who should walk away. The work did not stop with that first reserve. Every review since is the same multiplication, done for a different bill: a percent of assets, a monthly seat, a per-fill exchange charge, a close checklist.

What Mintcanopy will not do

We will not take a fee to change a score. We will not let a vendor approve a draft. We will not publish a backtest that hides the year it lost money, or a screen that hides the universe it started from. We will not tell you what your account will be worth. The financial disclaimer is the long version of that refusal. The about page is the short one: the desk is a record, and a record that takes payment to change a number is not a record.

Who writes

The byline is the desk, not a rotating set of unnamed sponsors. Corrections are dated on the page. If you see a fee that has changed since the screen was drawn, write to the contact page and the screen gets redrawn or the review comes down. That is the whole governance.

Governance in one paragraph

Mintcanopy corrects a number in public and dates it. A vendor does not approve the draft. A payment does not approve the score. The byline is the desk. If the screen we drew is stale, the contact page is how it gets redrawn or taken down. That is the governance. There is no advisory board and no custody of money. The financial disclaimer is the long refusal. This page is the short one.

The story at the top is the origin. The reviews are the work that followed. One does not replace the other.

The morning after the reserve meeting

The email on 13 March 2019 had three numbers and no adjectives. Year one on $1,200,000 at 0.25 percent is $3,000. Ten years with no growth is $30,000. The slide had shown neither. The committee did not un-approve the tool that week. They did require the fee to be restated in dollars before the next reserve meeting, and they required the operating cash of $180,000 to be labeled as billed or unbilled. Mintcanopy is the public version of that requirement. The about page is not a biography. It is the reason a later review is allowed to be boring on purpose: the fee, the file, and the person who should walk away.

The byline stays the desk. A guest post that arrives with a vendor's chart and no export does not get the byline. A correction is dated. The first public correction on the home page was the ten-year figure, which an early draft had rounded away. A reader sent the multiplication. We put it back. That is the governance. There is no advisory board, and there is no custody of the $1,200,000 or of anyone else's money.

What a vendor is allowed to change

A vendor may send the fee screen when our percent is stale. We change the number and we leave the date. A vendor may not send a preferred score, a preferred order, or a request to delete the skip paragraph. Harbor Path's skip, the concentrated employer stock, stays even if a partnership team dislikes it. Kindling's sweep stays a con. If we cannot repeat a finding, the finding comes down. Embarrassment is not the standard. Repeatability is. The financial disclaimer is the long refusal to be an adviser. This page is the short one.

What the desk will not become

It will not manage the $1,200,000, or your account, or a model portfolio delivered as a product. It will not sell the score. It will not let a partnership team delete the employer-stock skip on Harbor Path or the sweep con on Kindling. The morning after 12 March 2019 is the whole mandate: restate the fee in dollars before the next meeting. Mintcanopy publishes that restatement where a reader can check it. The about page is the mandate. The reviews are the work. One does not replace the other, and a vendor introduction does not replace either.

Dollars before the next meeting

The mandate from 13 March 2019 was narrow: restate the fee in dollars before anyone votes. $3,000 in year one on $1,200,000. $30,000 over ten years if the reserve does not grow. Operating cash of $180,000 labeled billed or unbilled. Mintcanopy still uses that mandate on a $29 chart and on a 0.35 percent IRA. The about page does not add a mission statement on top of it. Vendors do not edit it. The reviews are where the mandate is applied, one screen at a time.

The mandate in one line

Restate the fee in dollars before the next meeting. On the reserve that started the desk, 0.25 percent of $1,200,000 is $3,000 a year and $30,000 over ten years if nothing grows, and the operating cash of $180,000 still has to be labeled billed or unbilled. Mintcanopy has not added a softer mission on top of that line.