SEATTLE, WA, March 8, 2023 – Today Marguerite Casey Foundation (MCF) announced a new Investment Policy Statement (IPS) established to ensure the management of its assets aligns with the Foundation’s racial equity goals and objectives. The IPS is the governing document for the use of the Foundation’s endowment and provides the Foundation with a roadmap towards using the full weight of its resources in pursuit of a multiracial democracy and just economic agenda. The policy statement includes robust, values-aligned screening for the Foundation’s investments and racial and gender diversity and inclusion requirements for the companies overseeing them.

“Marguerite Casey Foundation’s investment framework reflects the depth and breadth of our commitment to shifting the balance of power in society and to increasing justice in the world,” MCF president and CEO Dr. Carmen Rojas said. “Philanthropy has a moral imperative to pursue breakthrough innovations that fracture long-standing systemic obstacles, and we aim to catalyze this practice in the philanthropic and investment spheres.”

Founded in 2001, MCF has disbursed more than $615 million in grants and initiatives aimed at building a just economy and fully realized democracy.

The IPS builds on the work MCF’s Board of Directors and executive leadership initiated several years ago. In 2021, the board approved a revised Investment Policy Statement that formalized its commitment to diverse managers. It also set an official target of having more than half of the Foundation’s $825 million endowment be overseen by diverse managers by the end of 2025. Presently, MCF has more than $150 million (18% of total assets) in committed capital and has added nine managers in the last two years.

According to the 2022 Knight Foundation Diversity of Asset Managers (KDAM) research series, just 18.1% of foundation endowments are invested with diverse-owned firms. In 2021, the KDAM research found that of the U.S.-based asset management industry representing over $80 trillion, only 1.4% of assets under management (AUM) were managed by women-owned firms, minority-owned firms or both.

As part of MCF’s effort to ensure the government prioritizes the needs of excluded and underrepresented people, MCF supports organizations, scholars, leaders, and initiatives focused on shifting the balance of power toward communities who continue to be excluded from shaping society and from sharing in its rewards and freedoms. This includes funding organizations working to expose and change the ways corporations harm communities and to create new models and standards for economic representation.

MCF vice president of Finance and Investments Daniel Gould said the new IPS ensures MCF’s partnerships are in line with its commitment to social justice.

“Marguerite Casey Foundation’s new ‘Investment Policy Statement’ incorporates a racial justice lens across asset classes and investment types,” Gould said. “Moving forward, our capital will have a double bottom line: to maintain long-term purchasing power and increase the net positive contribution to our mission and values.”
MCF board members have been instrumental in identifying and defining the aims and diversity and inclusion metrics of the new investment policy and guidelines.

“Marguerite Casey Foundation is demonstrating bold, breakthrough leadership in the philanthropic and financial sectors that we hope other institutions will embrace,” MCF Board Chair and Westfuller Advisors co-founder and partner Ian Fuller said. “The new framework wisely leverages MCF’s assets to accelerate progress toward our objective of a just economy.”
The new Investment Policy Statement and grantmaking guidelines aim to raise MCF’s philanthropic work to the next level of social justice advocacy and follow MCF’s recent and successful shareholder advocacy efforts.

WASHINGTON, DC, February 23, 2023 – On Wednesday, in celebration of Black History Month, the White House Office of Public Engagement hosted a listening session with over 70 Black venture capital (VC) and private equity (PE) stakeholders titled Bolstering the U.S. Economy by Closing the Racial Wealth Gap. The discussion was moderated by Under Secretary Don Cravins from the Minority Business Development Agency, which was permanently authorized under President Biden’s leadership, granting the agency expanded power to support Black-and other minority-owned businesses.

Biden-Harris Administration officials shared information about programs available to stakeholders that promote economic growth in the Black community. Stakeholders shared the ways in which the cultivation of a Black investor class and utilization of VC and PE can promote Black wealth creation.

Throughout the past two years, the Biden-Harris Administration has implemented legislation, developed programs, and appropriated funds to deliver equitable outcomes and opportunities for Black Americans.

The stakeholders applauded the Biden-Harris Administration’s ongoing commitment to racial equity and its connection to economic growth and mobility.

The stakeholders included:

• Christal Jackson, Founder, Mosaic Genius
• Eric Tait, Founder, Vernonville Asset Management
• Health Butler, Co-Founder, Innovation Center for Urban Entrepreneurship
• Lenny Saizan Jr., Co-Founder, Urban Capital Network
• Lola C. West, Co-Founder & Managing Director, Westfuller Advisors
• Marcus Glover, Managing Partner, Lockstep Ventures
• Marlon Nichols, Founding Managing Partner, MaC Venture Capital
• McKeever “Mac” Conwell, Founder & Managing Partner, RareBreed Ventures
• Michael Loeb, Co-Founder & Advisor, Lockstep Ventures
• Monique Idlett, CEO, Reign Ventures
• Phil Spencer, CEO, Vyve Broadband

From the Biden-Harris Administration:

• Gina Raimondo, Secretary of Commerce
• Keisha Lance Bottoms, Senior Advisor to the President for Public Engagement
• Don Cravins, Under Secretary of Commerce, Minority Business Development Agency
• Alejandra Castillo, Assistant Secretary of Commerce, Economic Development Administration
• Tara Murray, Special Assistant to the President, Deputy Director, White House Office of Public Engagement

NEW YORK, NY, January 18, 2023 – We ended last year with an important vote. Our board voted unanimously to approve a five-year strategic plan. The plan is the culmination of a highly engaged process guided by our values, field data, and our community. We studied social, political, and economic data, and we listened to the diverse perspectives of more than fifty partners, peers, and other issue experts. What we learned set us on a path to support systemic solutions that advance racial, economic, and environmental justice (REEJ).

To this end, we made the following strategic decisions:

We decided to make REEJ our sole focus. Through our strategic-planning process, we realized we were spreading our resources too thin to achieve transformative change. That realization, combined with a root-cause analysis of the issues at the core of our mission, drove our decision to bring all our work into alignment with REEJ. This decision covers not only our domestic work but also our work in the Israel-Palestine region.

We decided to converge all our assets for a “totality” approach to impact. We are reorganizing the ways we work so we can combine all the organization’s assets —people, relationships, knowledge, voice, and money — to support REEJ. As part of that, we will work in close coordination with Bivium Capital and Westfuller, our Outsourced Chief Investment Officer, to expand our impact-investing activities. In addition to doubling down on our shareholder activism and commitment to 100 percent mission-aligned investing, we will be introducing program-related investments (PRIs) into our portfolio.

We decided to invest more resources in the U.S. South. We know that groundbreaking work to advance REEJ is emerging from BIPOC communities in the South, even though the region has received comparatively little philanthropic support. While we will continue supporting national work, we are carving out a portion of our resources exclusively for designated place(s) in the South. We are undergoing a stakeholder-driven and data-informed process to select the “where” and “how much,” and we will share this information with you when we have it.

We decided to deepen our ethos of learning and improvement. Continuous improvement requires a commitment to learning from and listening to our partners and frontline communities. It also rests on the pursuit of data and information and the internalized belief that we do not possess all the answers. We will be developing measurement mechanisms across the foundation to hold ourselves accountable to the impact we seek, while staying true to trust-based values.

We decided to prioritize strengthening our internal culture. We know REEJ is an internal commitment as much as an external one. As one step toward that commitment, we are deepening staff and board understanding and skill on multiple issues related to racial equity and inclusion. The board is also dedicated to strengthening governance and solidifying the foundation’s leadership. Thus, it has re-elected Jaimie Mayer as Board Chair and given me the authority to lead the organization as President and CEO on an ongoing basis.

Our staff is already working to determine how to best put the board’s strategic decisions into action, and we will share more developments over the coming year. We appreciate the wisdom this community holds, and we look forward to continuing to engage you in our pursuit of REEJ.

Onwards!

Rey Ramsey
President and CEO

For inquiries please contact: [email protected]

NEW YORK, NY, September 9, 2021 – The Nathan Cummings Foundation (NCF) today announced its selection of Bivium Capital and WestFuller Advisors as its new Outsourced Chief Investment Officer (OCIO). Bivium Capital and WestFuller Advisors are Black owned and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) led.

“Our primary goal is to continue our journey to maximize all of our assets for societal impact,” said Rey Ramsey, NCF trustee, member of the investment committee, and interim CEO. “In opening the door to Bivium and WestFuller, we know that we open other doors that can no longer remain shut.”

Bivium Capital, which has operated for nearly 20 years, focuses on values-aligned investing and sourcing diverse, emerging managers. WestFuller Advisors, which has operated for more than 10 years, provides bespoke investment solutions for families and institutions seeking meaningful social impact and financial returns. Collectively, the firms have close to $2.5 billion in assets under advisement, excluding NCF’s nearly $500 million endowment. The partnership is augmented by Beacon Rose Partners, a real estate investment-management and advisory firm with an inclusive, community-driven lens.

“NCF’s desire for a ‘total enterprise approach’ will be our firms’ North Star,” said WestFuller Advisors Managing Director and Co-founder Ian Fuller. “We have an opportunity to build a world-class portfolio that not only maximizes financial and impact returns for NCF but also demonstrates what’s possible when you invest for long-term, systemic change.”

“Most foundations consider impact and financial returns separately,” said Bivium Chief Investment Strategist Kai Hong. “But NCF has an integrated framework that will allow us to use mission as the lens through which we assess all factors – risk, return, liquidity, and impact –when making investment decisions. It’s leading-edge work.”

In 2018, NCF became the largest foundation to commit to move 100 percent of its assets into mission-aligned investments. NCF’s new partnership with Bivium Capital and WestFuller Advisors will allow it to advance that journey. Together, they will foster an inclusive investing process; make more investments that directly advance racial, economic, and environmental justice; and design impact reports that improve accountability and reflect the foundation’s theory of change. “We can’t solve the big problems at the core of our mission by following the same playbook that helped create those problems in the first place,” said Bob Bancroft, NCF’s Vice President of Finance and Mission Investing. “Institutions like ours can flip the script and develop a more integrated approach to impact.”

“NCF is serious about allocating capital differently – using a different lens, backing new kinds of opportunities, and serving the needs of a broader range of beneficiaries,” said Bivium President and CEO Lawrence Bancroft. “We will use our diverse networks to open up the aperture of investment options for NCF.”

“Having worked in this industry for decades, it’s incredibly meaningful to partner with an organization like NCF that walks its values in everything it does. I acknowledge NCF for having the intention to cause ripples throughout the foundation world in ways that foster better outcomes for investors and society alike,” said WestFuller Co-founder and Managing Director Lola C. West.

“Reverend Jesse Jackson talks about how baseball became better when Ernie Banks, Jackie Robinson, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and other great players joined it,” said John Rogers, former NCF investment committee member and founder of Ariel Investments, the first Black-owned mutual fund in the U.S. “When investors start to open the gates and work with diverse managers, they’ll discover – just like they did in baseball – that there’s plenty of exceptional players out there ready to transform the game.”

About Nathan Cummings Foundation

The Nathan Cummings Foundation is a multigenerational family foundation, rooted in the Jewish tradition of social justice and working to create a more just, vibrant, sustainable, and democratic society. The foundation has four areas of focus: advancing racial and economic justice; transitioning to an inclusive clean economy; activating corporate and political accountability; and building solidarity through voice, creativity, and culture. Its commitment to 100 percent mission-aligned investing flows from Nathan Cummings’s anchoring ethos that “nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must be first overcome.”

About Bivium-WestFuller and Beacon Rose

Bivium, WestFuller and Beacon Rose are partnered to provide Outsourced Chief Investment Officer services, providing sustainable, responsible, and impact-focused advisory solutions for today’s leading foundations, nonprofits, university endowments, and family offices. Helmed by one of the most diverse leadership teams in the OCIO ecosystem, the group advises with a commitment to community engagement; diversity, equity and inclusion; and social and climate justice. Their collaboration represents a new class of values-centered investment advisory – guiding with deep institutional-investment expertise, a commitment to enduring systemic change, and diverse leadership that creates long-term value.

Media Contact

Candice Wynter
(646) 906-5649
[email protected]

Source: Nathan Cummings Foundation