Community Philanthropy Investor Circle

Across the country, more impact investors are looking to do good while still earning a return on their capital; however, many practitioners remain disconnected from truly catalytic investments. The practice has yet to broadly reach its change-making potential as a result. This resource reflects on the promise offered by impact investing and gives recommendations on how the field of philanthropy can fulfil it.

In this resource, we discuss how community foundations resource their local impact investing efforts, anticipate possible expenses, and cover those costs on an annual basis. This resource was informed by a conversation with practitioners as well as survey responses provided by a group of community foundations.

In this resource, we examine the ways in which local impact investing programs add value for donors, how this nontraditional philanthropic practice can be communicated to them, and how to finally engage donors to build collaborative impact investing initiatives.

We investigate in practical terms how community foundations construct their local impact investing programs and develop a summary decision-making matrix illustrating different design elements.