Philanthropic foundations often operate in two worlds: one that makes grants in line with a philanthropic mission and another that invests the organization’s assets to earn top returns.
Those worlds can often be at odds. A foundation aiming to address climate change, for example, could be investing in a fossil-fuel company creating greenhouse gas emissions that’s only making the situation worse.
The board of the Nathan Cummings Foundation in New York became comfortable with the idea of impact investing as they realized, “it doesn’t make sense to invest a dollar in a company causing the problem and give out a nickel to solve it,” says Bob Bancroft, vice president, finance and mission investing, at the foundation.
The foundation is—surprisingly—squarely in the minority. Most philanthropic organizations don’t try to align their investments with their mission, concluded a study published this past winter. “Can Foundation Assets Achieve Greater Impact” was researched by Bridgespan Social Impact, a subsidiary of the New York-based Bridgespan Group, with contributions from the Capricorn Investment Group, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based investment firm founded by former eBay president Jeff Skoll.
Among the biggest hurdles foundations face is convincing their investment committees and boards that impact strategies can earn market-rate returns.
“It doesn’t make sense to invest a dollar in a company causing the problem and give out a nickel to solve it”
In a recent blog post for Confluence Philanthropy, Capricorn executives make a case for how outsourced chief investment officers, or OCIOs—which often advise foundations—can educate these organizations about impact investments, including various strategies and risk and return profiles.
They advocate for advising on a comprehensive approach that can meet a foundation’s overall impact and financial goals instead of offering a “one-off” allocation. “Values-aligned investing should not be treated as just a momentary achievement but rather as an intentional evolution of how investment decisions are made,” Capricorn wrote.
They also advocate for OCIOs to present performance data showing wary clients how impact investments have performed. Capricorn said its goal as an investment advisor is to link impact and returns, so that as the impact of an investment rises, so does the returns.
In a survey by the New York-based Global Impact Investing Network published last year, 79% of global investors said the performance of their impact investments met or exceeded their financial targets. The GIIN surveyed 308 investors that manage US$371 billion in impact assets.
The biggest roadblock to making a change often exists with the investment committee. That’s because these teams have been managing their endowments for years and have produced results that allow their foundations to meet their goals. “It becomes daunting for the other parts of the organization to try to assert themselves over that domain,” Bancroft says.
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