Measuring the deeper impacts of your impact investments can taste both sweet and sour. Sweet because it informs us whether our investment is driving positive change, and sour when it comes to the realities of collecting it. At SK2 Fund, impact measurement has always been a focus of our work with our programs providing pay-it-forward […]
Read more...Advocacy
One of SK2's stated objectives is to influence other foundation and philanthropic peers to allocate more financial resources to mission aligned investments. Previously our efforts existed more or less in a vacuum, posting blogs and having conversations with sympathetic peers — mostly preaching to the choir.
In addition to now being transparent with our impact investments (see 100% Impact Endowment), we are also starting to find our voice. SK2 is now partnering with a leader in the small foundation mission-aligned investing (MAI) field, Untours Foundation, in their advocacy efforts, including co-sponsoring the illustrative video below. We believe the lack of foundation engagement in MAI is often a question of education on the issue, rather than malintent.
The vast majority of foundations are dogmatically governed by traditional practices separating how money is made from the good it can do. This means 95% of foundation endowments are invested passively without regard, and in some cases, direct opposition to their charitable mission objectives. In other words, 95% of foundation money works to preserve the status quo, while only 5% (less overhead!) works to change it. We believe that if pursuit of its charitable mission is the highest purpose of a foundation, then all its resources, investments as well as grants, should be applied towards it.
Please reach out to us if you are considering making the journey into mission and values-aligned investing!
"Dollars That Make Sense" from 215 Timelapse
The Elephant in the Endowment Room
The proverbial elephant in the room when it comes to talking about endowment impact portfolios is public equities—commonly traded stocks and bonds. With few exceptions, most foundation endowments are overwhelmingly comprised of them. Even the small minority of impact-focused foundation endowments often hold significant allocations of public equities, including SK2, but we are steadily reducing our exposure from around 80% of our portfolio to eventually about a third of it. We encourage other impact-focused foundations to consider moving in the same direction.
Read more...A Lazy Person’s Guide to Impact Investing
By Erik Schultz May 2022 – I believe in the fundamental premise that in exchange for privileged tax-advantaged status, private foundations like ours should do everything they can in pursuit of their charitable missions. Until just a few years ago I thought we did that, by often exceeding the legal requirement to give away 5% […]
Read more...The Endowment Wears No Clothes – September 2021
We are pleased to read about more and more foundations declaring their intention to invest increasing portions of their endowments in alignment with their missions. The vast majority however do nothing of the sort. In 2020, only 16% of “small” foundations (<100m) like SK2 reported engaging in mission-related investing or impact investing. The biggest reason […]
Read more...On the Turning Away – June 2021
Until last year, our charitable work focused on supporting disadvantaged and underserved entrepreneurs internationally (and much of it still does). But over the years, people often asked us why we don’t do the same here in the US? We would mostly respond: the need is so much greater and our scarce dollars go so much farther. While this is true on many levels, that answer avoids addressing the social and economic disenfranchisement of African-Americans and other people of color here at home. With limited resources, we are not able to be everywhere or help out on every important issue.
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