January 24, 2024 How Philanthropic Funds Helped Mobilize Over $1 Billion in Investments for Sustainable Development January 24, 2024/ Liz Longley There are enormous shortfalls in funding to advance the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals. As part of its commitment to impact investing, MacArthur Foundation seeded a $1.1 billion fund for the cause.Read More
December 07, 2023 Nonprofits Are Uniquely Positioned to Harness the Oncoming Tidal Wave of Catalytic Capital December 07, 2023/ Sarah Kearney, Guest Contributor As philanthropists look to invest for impact, they’ll need strong, mission-centric infrastructure to help them do so. Guest author Sarah Kearney discusses the key roles nonprofits can play in building those systems.Read More
October 25, 2023 Owned by Movement Leaders, This Financial Firm Is Shaking Up Nonprofit Investing October 25, 2023/ Michael Kavate A little over a year since its launch, Just Futures is making moves. The firm is continuing its mission to put nonprofit retirement funds to good use, while expanding to manage nonprofit assets and community investment funds.Read More
September 15, 2023 A Foster Youth Activist Calls on Philanthropy to Invest Endowment Dollars in Affordable Housing September 15, 2023/ Wendy Paris Daniel Heimpel believes foundations’ invested assets are a deeply underutilized tool in their efforts to tackle the housing crisis. His path forward? Use grants and investments in tandem to ease the way for affordable housing.Read More
April 24, 2023 Spring Reading for a Cleaner Planet: Five New Resources on Climate Philanthropy April 24, 2023/ Michael Kavate With spring in the air, here’s some recently released reading material on climate giving, with an emphasis on how funders can clean up their act when it comes to their investments.Read More
April 05, 2023 The Evolution of the Woodcock Foundation: A Progressive Family Funder Branches Out April 05, 2023/ Ade Adeniji As this family foundation heads into its third generation, it’s backing social enterprises, taking on new issue areas, and exploring practices like impact investing and trust-based philanthropy. Read More
January 18, 2023 How Both ENDS Director Danielle Hirsch Is Using Philanthropy, Advocacy and More to Shift Power January 18, 2023/ Mandy Van Deven Both ENDS is a Netherlands-based organization that is challenging power dynamics in philanthropy in a number of ways. Director Danielle Hirsch talks about the group’s journey, its approach and why discomfort is a good thing.Read More
January 04, 2023 The Answer to Smarter Philanthropy Can Be Found in a DAF Intermediary January 04, 2023/ Casey van der Stricht, Guest Contributor While more people are taking advantage of donor-advised funds, they could be making a greater impact. Casey van der Stricht of the Solve Innovation Future Fund at MIT offers a path for donors to invest in social innovators.Read More
December 01, 2022 Three Questions We Have About a Philanthropic Future Dominated by DAFs December 01, 2022/ Philip Rojc As of last year, American donors are putting quite a lot more into donor-advised funds than they are into foundations. Even as calls for reform persist, we consider what the future might look like should this trend continue.Read More
August 04, 2022 Nonprofit Retirement Accounts Hold Over $1 Trillion. Could That Money Be Supporting Social Justice? August 04, 2022/ Michael Kavate The retirement accounts of nonprofit staff hold some formidable sums. A new impact investing outfit hopes to channel some of that money toward investments that align with workers’ values, while securing their savings.Read More
August 03, 2022 Nine Questions for Dana Lanza, President, CEO and Co-founder of Confluence Philanthropy August 03, 2022/ Michael Kavate The head of a leading network of foundations committed to mission-aligned investing talks about the implications of the war in Ukraine and her belief that more foundations will soon make net zero pledges.Read More
July 12, 2022 Corporations’ Assets Have Huge Carbon Footprints. What About Foundations? July 12, 2022/ Michael Kavate Assets of companies like Microsoft and Alphabet have larger carbon footprints than all their other emissions combined, says a new report. Foundations may want to pay attention.Read More
February 10, 2022 Funder Spotlight: All About the Kresge Foundation’s Environment Program February 10, 2022/ Michael Kavate The Kresge Foundation is one of the top environmental funders in the country—and one of the most focused on equity. We take a look at what it supports through its environment program and why.Read More
December 15, 2021 How to Solve the Giving Pledge Bottleneck—and Fund Large-Scale Solutions December 15, 2021/ Sean Davis, Guest Contributor The U.S. has enormous unmet needs, while billions already pledged to philanthropy remain unspent. Guest author Sean Davis proposes a solution that would fund for-profit companies to take on large-scale infrastructure projects. Read More
November 10, 2021 As the COVID Fight Continues, Who’s Funding Surveillance for the Next Biological Threat? November 10, 2021/ Liz Longley COVID-19 was a wake-up call to the world that we are insufficiently prepared to identify and stop emerging diseases. It’s a niche cause in philanthropy, but here are a few funders backing early warning systems.Read More
October 21, 2021 Two More Major Funders Are Moving Assets Away from Fossil Fuels, in a Shift Years in the Making October 21, 2021/ Michael Kavate Two multibillion-dollar funders, the Ford and McKnight foundations, became the largest foundations yet to publicly align their investments with their missions to fight climate change. It’s been a long time coming.Read More
September 30, 2021 How Ada Williams Prince Designs Investment Strategies for Liberation September 30, 2021/ Mandy Van Deven Ada Williams Prince is senior advisor for program strategy and investment at Pivotal Ventures. In this Q&A with Mandy Van Deven, she discusses the value of lived experience, how she’s developing new investment strategies and more.Read More
August 04, 2021 How a Pritzker-Backed Philanthropy Channels Impact Investing Toward Private Schools in Ghana August 04, 2021/ Liz Longley The IDP Foundation is the philanthropy of Liesel Pritzker Simmons and her mother, Irene Pritzker. We take a closer look at its impact investing approach to education in Africa, including at how it responded during COVID.Read More
July 28, 2021 To Get New Treatments Across the Finish Line, a Funder Fighting Blindness Turns to Investing July 28, 2021/ Paul Karon Three years ago, the Foundation Fighting Blindness launched a venture philanthropy arm to invest in biotech companies and bring treatments to market. Ten companies in, the effort is going strong.Read More
July 20, 2021 A Different Kind of Buyout—Funders Turn a For-Profit Biotech Company Into a Social Enterprise July 20, 2021/ Liz Longley The pandemic revealed deadly gaps in our capacity to test for disease, especially in developing parts of the world. In an innovative impact investing deal, philanthropies are turning a diagnostics company into a social enterprise. Read More