(Illustration by iStock/champc)
Just as the world’s challenges are interconnected, so too are effective solutions. Adding foundations’ endowments to the impact equation holds potential for accelerating solutions to some of the world’s largest challenges.
What if foundations aligned impact and investment strategies intentionally and strategically to fuel change across multiple dimensions? Foundations can operate across a spectrum of capital opportunities from general-operating support grants at one end to market-return endowment investments on the other—with a variety of options, such as concessionary and returnable capital constructs, in between.
The longstanding partnership between the Skoll Foundation and the B Corp Capricorn Investment Group (CIG) shows us how this approach has created outsized impact. In 2020, Skoll and CIG developed impact-investing portfolios that could drive social change alongside commercial opportunities. Together, we shifted the foundation’s endowment to a net-zero status by changing our holdings to drive innovation and returns and by investing in nature-based carbon-offset projects …