Roll Out The Red Carpet!
Welcome, friends, to the World Premier of the second film in our trilogy, “Money For Change.” Grab your popcorn for this quick two-and-a-half-minute watch! This film offers a simple message of how to find – and make – direct investments in cool things that advance YOUR mission.
Remember, all of our films and materials are open source. Use them, share them, and add them to your websites. This includes our newly edited Endowment Starter Kit.
Thanks for your work to move money to where it can do great things!
Elizabeth
Meet an Endowment Champion
Josie Green
Director of the Josephine and Louise Crane Foundation
At Work…
What inspired you to start aligning your endowment with your mission? I’m fortunate to know a community of funders interested in moving resources “upstream” to address inequities at their root. What inspired me was their example and leadership to consider ways to utilize all their assets to advance social, environmental and economic systems change.
What have been the biggest obstacles in this journey? I was very apprehensive about butting into a part of the foundation’s administration and management I knew little about, and which was being ably managed by others. However, over time, a sense of responsibility to frontline groups superseded my worry. Depending on your objectives, investments can advance a host of different things. It was important to me that the priorities specified in our investment strategy were improving outcomes for marginalized and underrepresented groups.
Have you ventured into shareholder advocacy? Yes! I’m learning about shareholder advocacy as a tool and how it’s different from a divestment strategy. We now prioritize diverse fund managers, utilize shareholder advocacy, and support local community investments. My comfort level with not knowing has grown and there’re loads of opportunities for continued learning.
What about perpetuity or spending down/investing down? The perpetuity, spend down debate is interesting and fraught. The idea of ceding control of wealth is not an easy sell for most folks and is impacted by how one thinks about philanthropic legacy. I think it’s a conversation worth having and I find it helpful to think about it less as an “either-or” problem to solve and rather as a continuum of possibilities: steps we can take, big and small, to leverage all our assets to promote positive social change.
What’s next in your mission alignment? I’m looking forward to deepening my knowledge! There’s a great group of people – individuals with private wealth and institutional funders – who are feeling the urgency of this moment and thinking deeply about this subject. This includes conversations about increasing payout, providing creative financing beyond traditional grants, community investments, and the idea of additional draws or spending or investing down some or all of an endowment.
As with most great journeys, we start in one place and keep moving. I’m happy to be on this path.
After Work…
Favorite caffeine source: Coffee in any form! Iced, hot, ice cream, chocolate covered etc…
Happy place: Partial to Falmouth MA though anyplace close to nature, near the ocean, or in the countryside.
— See other mission aligned trailblazers on our website! —
Vacation! A Time to Gather, Together.
As we gather for the holiday season, it’s fun to dream up where you can travel together in the new year. We were born out of UnTours travel and have since inherited it. When you travel with UnTours, you support our work. Check the offerings, including winter travel to Christmas markets in Europe and warm destinations in the south.