In theory, impact investment balances positive social and environmental returns with competitive profits to investors. But mandating competitive profits for investors often reduces the potential social and environmental impact of investees. What if the focus shifted from maximizing profit to maximizing impact, or profiting only modestly enough to make the financial investment sustainable?
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
Crafting a 100% impact portfolio – November 2020
Creating a portfolio that is not rooted overwhelmingly in the stock market is not easy. It takes serious financial acumen, deep understanding of mission and values objectives alongside impact measurement, and no small amount of due diligence and monitoring. Without our partners at 3rd Creek Investments, it is highly unlikely we’d have the bandwidth to […]
Read more...We’re inspired to raise the bar for impact – September 2020
As SK2 Fund launches, we’d like to recognize RSF Social Finance and in particular their Integrated Capital Institute.
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