Sustainable Investments That Foundations Can Make for People and the Planet

by Christen Graham, founder of Giving Strong 

The climate emergency is driving innovation that philanthropy can fund, and is funding, with foundation investment capital. With the lived-experience of forest fires, major hurricanes, coastal flooding and other recent, tangible consequences of a rapidly warming planet, the urgency to deploy more capital to find solutions is activating more immediate action. The disproportionate impact that environmental injustice has on communities of color and low-income communities in the United States and around the world expands the universe of foundations seeking to change how they deploy capital.

Many foundations are responding by reaching beyond grantmaking and reconsidering their investments in traditional asset classes, creating new models and collaborating, all while keeping the future of planet Earth and the people who populate it as their central missions. Foundations also have a unique ability to provide capital to ramp up new technologies, catapult “moonshot” ideas to fruition, influence corporate behavior and activate other funders to participate in projects that might have otherwise been considered too risky for business or government, accountable to a different set of external stakeholders.

Read Christen's full article on how the 100,000 private foundations in the U.S., can combine grantmaking and sustainable investing now for immediate benefits to climate and create jobs -  https://greenmoney.com/sustainable-investments-that-foundations-can-make-for-people-and-the-planet

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