Foundations Use Endowments to Further Charitable Aims
January 2, 2008 | Read Time: 1 minute
Many major foundations are beginning to meld their philanthropic missions with endowment investment practices, seeking greater overlap between two traditionally unlinked goals, reports the Los Angeles Times.
Douglas Bauer, senior vice president of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, said, “A head of steam has been created around the issue of ‘mission-related investing.’”
The W.K. Kellogg Foundation, for example, recently established a $100-million fund for social and mission-related investing in the United States and Africa.
Some of the impetus for change may have been triggered by Los Angeles Times articles this year that criticized investments by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the newspaper notes. One of the reports claimed that the foundation invested $22.4-million in companies accused of supporting the Sudanese government, which has been implicated in the genocide against citizens in its Darfur region.
The Gates Foundation has since divested itself of its Sudan-related holdings. Gates officials did not respond to requests for an interview for this article.
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