Typically, Trusts and Foundations spend between 1 and 4 % of their endowment every year. A growing number of foundations are turning their lens towards the 96-99% that’s invested to ask whether the endowment model makes sense, given the change this era demands – are there better investment logics out there, what possibilities open up if we can break out of the constraints of convention and common practice, and really re-design with purpose. This session introduces some of the new thinking in this area, and explores specific questions including do we need to build a new investment worldview, how does capital re-connect to the civic economy, what governance design and practice will help us be bold.
Jen Hooke
CEO, Thirty Percy
Rick Alexander
CEO, Shareholder Commons
Eli Manderson-Evans
Social Justice Consultant and Researcher
Marlene Engelhorn, Author
Louisa Mann
Skagen Services and Chair of Trustees, Thirty Percy
Colin Melvin
Founder, Arkadiko Partners
For more information about our speakers, please check out our Full Speakers List
Many of the debates about philanthropic investment activity in recent years have centred on the ESG agenda, with Trustees seeking to invest Foundation assets responsibly, in a way that ‘does no harm’ - or goes further than that - to ‘do good’. Work has been done to define and make ESG commitments tougher and more watertight, and to increase the accountability felt by asset managers and investment advisers to take ESG commitments seriously. Many foundations have gone further and earmarked a percentage of their endowment for social investment - though it remains the case that with a handful of exceptions, these percentages are still tiny, and the vast majority of philanthropic investment remains in global equities and property.
These efforts are certainly a good indicator of intent, but they are still grounded in what this panel explores as a dominant ‘endowment mindset’ - where the primary task is to protect accumulated wealth. This is a mindset so pervasive it can sometimes be hard to reveal the underlying logic behind it, and to see the fact that we can redesign and reorient that logic if we choose to.
This panel explores two ways in which investment logics could be significantly reframed, and explores what the consequences of that could be. First, it looks at what might lie beyond the notion of ‘capital preservation’. Why has this been the goal, and is it the right one? What if we applied a different perspective to endowments? What priorities might emerge? Second, it looks at the way in which current investment logics consider risk: where in the system that risk sits, and whether there are some risks which are over- and under-weighted, and whether the concentration of power and assets in our current systems of investment is itself a risk.
This is a new frontier and so the panel will share perspectives as far as they can see them. The speakers will offer some practical guidance based on their own work of how to start conversations and develop approaches to this work that might enable funders and investors to make bolder decisions, and to look beyond the ‘endowment mindset’ that continues to shape the funding world.
Rick’s work