The Philea Virtual Library

The Philea Virtual Library includes over 1,000 free-to-download publications from a range of organisations and publishers on the topics of philanthropy, the management of foundations and the areas they are involved in and support. As a Philea member you can send us your publications for inclusion in the library which will also be added to the global IssueLab network where they will be made available to an extended audience, including users of Worldcat, the global catalogue used by tens of thousands of libraries. For questions or assistance, please contact the Philea Virtual Library.
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Mission-Aligned Investing: How We Assess Our Progress

April 4, 2022

This report focuses on impact and ESG investing to share how our investment team thinks about the non-financial returns from our portfolio. Impact and ESG investment metrics remain a work in progress across the industry. Over time, Agility and the RBF have adopted an increasingly more comprehensive lens to assess the non-financial outcomes of our mission-aligned investments. The report details the RBF's 2021 transition to a multi-pronged approach to impact and ESG metrics, including:Considering both qualitative and quantitative data, recognizing that impacts can be positive or negative.Using the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) IRIS+ catalog of generally accepted impact performance metrics to measure social, environmental, and financial success.Adopting the United Nation's 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which many have seen as an industry standard, as a method for categorizing ESG and impact goals.Actively engaging with industry coalitions and efforts to further standardize ESG and impact metrics.Aligning our endowment with our mission extends beyond the investments in the portfolio to other steps we, as investors, can take to influence corporations, fund managers, and other asset owners. The report also details our focus areas for intended impact, areas of growth, and shareholder engagement activities. The RBF developed and implemented revised proxy voting guidelines in 2017 and partners with Agility and Institutional Shareholder Services, Inc., in the implementation and subsequent reporting phases of shareholder engagement and proxy voting. The RBF exercised its proxy votes on a range of issues in 2021, including human rights, workplace and board diversity, sustainability and climate change, and others. The report shows how RBF proxy voting reflects and builds on larger trends in shareholder engagement over the last several years.

Finance and Investment; Grantmaking and Programme Management

Investment: The Pillars of Stronger Foundation Practice

July 8, 2020

Investment: The Pillars of Stronger Foundation Practice is the fifth report emerging from ACF's Stronger Foundations initiative. It sets out seven characteristics of excellent practice, which include prioritising mission when setting investment objectives, holding investment managers to account, and seeking to influence the investment behaviour of others. Informed by 18 months' gathering evidence, the report also emphasises the role of each and every trustee in engaging with the foundation's investments, and seeks to demystify investments by providing clear explanations and examples. It also highlights the importance of seeking a wide range of views, ensuring diverse voices are heard and learning from peers in the foundation sector and beyond. It complements previous reports from the Stronger Foundations initiative which encourage foundations to consider using 'all the tools in their toolbox' to achieve impact.

Finance and Investment

Social Aims of Finance: Rediscovering Varieties of Credit in Financial Archives

January 1, 2020

The papers included in this volume are a selection of those presented at a joint eabh and Fondazione 1563 conference in 2018 in Turin, Italy. The conference sought to expand upon research in the field of social responsibility and ethical finance and saw over 150 attendees examine the connections between banking and charity, ethics and profit and explore case studies of financial from across the world.Papers ranged from Italian Monte di Pietà in the Middle Ages to the recent advent of contemporary impact financing, from rural moneylenders in Western India to the mutualism of French agricultural credit, from the Swedish savings banks and the British building societies to the German and Dutch Raiffeisen banks, from Rothschild philanthropy to the public economic and social aspects of the Italian banking system, from the Spanish bank archives to those in Canada and South Africa. Each paper ends with a list of bibliographical references.

Finance and Investment; Philanthropy, Theory, Philosophy and History

The Mission Aligned Framework for Investing: Maximizing the Impact of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s Mission Driven Investment Portfolio

July 2, 2019

The Mission Aligned Framework for Investing, introduced in this report, is a management and governance tool created by KKS Advisors on behalf of the Kellogg Foundation. It offers a set of determinants related to our programmatic strategy and desired outcomes. As we evaluate our investments, this analysis is contributing to our thinking and ongoing measurement of sustained impact. We offer this report as a resource for the field and a tool for other organizations exploring mechanisms to evaluate the social effect of investments in pursuit of deep impact.

Finance and Investment

Le Rôle des Fondations et Fonds de Dotation dans l'Investissement à Impact Social en France

January 1, 2019

This study presents the situation of social impact investment in France and reminds that social investment can be an additional tool to serve the public interest.

Finance and Investment; Grantmaking and Programme Management

Gestion Financière des Fondations et Fonds de Dotations : Enquête 2018

January 1, 2018

The purpose of this survey is to learn about the financial management practices of foundations and funds in France.A first edition of this study was published in 2011 and a second in 2014.It was carried out at the initiative of the French Center of Funds and Foundations in partnership with Amadeis.Opinions were collected during the summer of 2018 by means of a questionnaire. 

Finance and Investment; Governance, Boards and Strategy

The State of Impact Measurement and Management Practice

December 1, 2017

This report presents findings from the GIIN's first comprehensive survey of the state of impact measurement and management (IMM) in the impact investing industry.Impact management is the process by which impact investors can understand the effects of their investments on people and the planet, and set goals to adapt processes and improve outcomes. Over the years, the impact investing industry has dedicated increasing resources to IMM, deepening the sophistication of practice as the industry has developed.It captures data from 169 impact investing organizations to provide valuable insights into why impact investors measure and manage their social and environmental impact, how they do so, and challenges that remain. By providing critical data and transparency regarding IMM practice, this report enables investors to better understand this core element of impact investing.

Evaluation and Learning; Finance and Investment

Key Facts on Brazilian Social Investment: GIFE Census 2016

October 24, 2017

To better understand the characteristics of member organizations and their social investment priorities, GIFE conducts a biannual survey of its members. This report highlights key findings from the 2017 survey; 116 GIFE members (90% of its 129 members) responded to questions about their 2016 activities. For the purpose of this analysis, data from community foundations have been grouped with responses from independent associations and foundations. All survey data, unless otherwise noted, refer to 2016 and are based on 116 responses. Funding amounts are calculated on a constant 2016 Brazilian Real/US Dollar exchange rate.

Finance and Investment

Mapping the Journey to Impact Investing

February 1, 2017

Coinciding with their announcement to earmark $100 MM to impact investing, the Surdna Foundation is publishing "Mapping the Journey to Impact Investing" as a way to encourage others to embrace the practice and help build the field. In it the foundation lays out its experience and provides a "road atlas" to help others engage in impact investing. This report focuses on how to organize a generative process to learn about and discuss impact investing, using our own experience as a guide. Existing resources in the field can provide the technical blueprints for making impact investments, so we do not seek to replace those resources. By openly sharing our experience, the Surdna Foundation instead hopes this report will serve as a case study for others in the philanthropic community who choose to explore impact investing tailored to their mission and goals, and that it will contribute to collective learning in the fields of mission-related investing and family philanthropy.There is no single right way to approach impact investing. But whatever course you follow, our hope is that the tools and tips we provide will help make the trip a rewarding and worthwhile one.

Finance and Investment

Sea of Opportunity: Supply Chain Investment Opportunities to Address Marine Plastic Pollution (Executive Summary)

February 1, 2017

Philanthropist Paul G. Allen funded this report to identify impact investment opportunities for those joining the fight to eliminate plastics pollution as a significant contributor to the rapidly deteriorating health of our ocean. Millions of metric tons of plastic are dumped into our ocean annually, and through this report potential investors will beter understand how they can most efficiently and effectively help to disrupt the plastics supply chain and prevent plastics pollution in the first place. Mr. Allen's unique data- and technology-driven approach to some of the world's toughest challenges catalyzes innovation, improves policy, and accelerates change for the beter. He believes this report can have the same effect on the future of our ocean.This report is intended solely as an informational resource for those individuals and organizations seeking to support solutions to the problem of ocean plastics. It is not intended to prescribe specific investment approaches, speculate about potential risks or returns, or recommend individual companies for investment. And, as always, investors need to conduct their own extensive due diligence on these suggestions before making any investments. This report does not claim to have completed exhaustive due diligence on any of these approaches.This report has been produced by Encourage Capital who takes full responsibility for the report's contents and conclusions. While our technical advisors and the many organizations consulted have greatly informed the content of this report, their participation does not necessarily imply endorsement of the report's contents or its conclusions. We are very thankful for their contributions.

Environment and Sustainable Development; Finance and Investment

Risk Management for Philanthropy: A Toolkit

January 2, 2017

Risk is a fundamental component of philanthropists' success. Philanthropists invest money to achieve certain specified outcomes, and like any investment, that transaction is governed by the interplay between risk and return. While philanthropy has taken strides in recent years to build out the monitoring and evaluation systems necessary to measure and determine our return—described as impact—we routinely ignore the risk half of the equation.To address this gap, Open Road Alliance, Rockefeller Foundation, and Arabella Advisors convened the Commons— a diverse task force that represents all facets of philanthropy, including foundations, nonprofits, impact service providers, nonprofit attorneys, wealth advisors, and philanthropic associations. The Commons confirmed that the lack of open conversation about potential risk is a major problem for the field, and developed a first set of user-friendly tools to help funders implement better risk practices. These tools are broadly applicable across the philanthropic sector and can help all types of funders, from those first beginning to discuss risk internally to those who are evaluating the effectiveness of their risk management strategies after several years. With this toolkit, we seek to encourage funders to establish a deliberate risk profile and integrate risk management into their philanthropic practice.

Administration and Management; Evaluation and Learning; Finance and Investment; Governance, Boards and Strategy; Grantmaking and Programme Management

Alignment Between Private Social Investment and Business

January 1, 2017

This publication is the first of a new GIFE series, which will explore "Social Investment Themes". This project, which took shape in the second half of 2015, aims to explore in depth topics central to social investment, bringing together information, reflections, data and case studies, in a concise, educational format that balances a conceptual approach with real-life experiences.The aim of this edition is to stimulate more open discussion of the theme of alignment between social investment and business, sharing what has been learned by institutes and foundations, as well as their concerns about this topic.

Finance and Investment

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