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Westfuller – Certified B Corporation – B Lab Global
Westfuller is a Certified B Corporation. Westfuller is a multi-racial, gender diverse, independent \u000Band objective investment advisory and wealth management firm. Drawing from deep investment expertise, maximizing assets for enduring systemic change and leveraging diverse perspectives, we orchestrate multifaceted invest …
Wealth Managers Must Adopt a Racial Justice Approach to Windfalls
For investment advisory firms to have an impact in this new landscape, it is essential to adopt a community-centered approach—concentrating on community economic development, revitalization, growth, and sustainability—with racial justice at the forefront of impact investing, writes Fuller, a co-founder and partner of Westfuller, a Black-majority, woman- and LGBTQ-owned investment advisory …
Major Asset Owners and Fund Leaders Call on Asset Managers to Vote for Shareholder Initiatives on Racial Justice
Investors and pension fund leaders affiliated with funds that represent over $1.2 trillion dollars in assets under management joined together to call on BlackRock, Vanguard, Fidelity, and State Street to align their proxy voting on matters related to racial equity and justice with long-term financial interests for a sustainable and inclusive economy, and their own stated positions …
Lola C. West Accepts the “March on Award” on Behalf of the Donors of Color Network at the March On Washington Film Festival Gala
Running until October 11, the March on Washington Film Festival kicked off last week with the largest opening night gala in its history. The festival’s goal is to “tell, celebrate, and increase awareness of the untold events and icons and foot soldiers, known and unsung, of the Civil Rights Movement.”
Foundations Are Diversifying Their Investment Managers
Foundations are trying to increase diversity, starting with the firms that manage their assets. The Nathan Cummings Foundation announced in a press release this month that Black-owned asset-management firms Bivium Capital and WestFuller Advisors will manage its endowment from now on.
Separately, the MacArthur Foundation pledged to have at least 20% of its assets invested with firms led by people of color and/or women by 2024, according to a statement released last week.
Nathan Cummings Foundation Selects Impact Specialists WestFuller and Bivium Capital to Manage Its Investments
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
Press Release
Nathan Cummings Foundation Selects Impact Specialists WestFuller and Bivium Capital to Manage Its Investments
Ian S. Fuller Serves as Board Treasurer at The Marguerite Casey foundation
Ian S. Fuller Joins Common Justice Board of Directors
Part II of our Black Philanthropy Month Spotlight on Lola C. West
For Black Philanthropy Month (BPM) we are highlighting stories of those who are committed to informing, inspiring, and investing in Black communities. Through a series of interviews, we will explore the various ways leaders are celebrating and emphasizing the importance of investing in Black leadership from within the Black community in Brooklyn and beyond.
In this second installment of our interview with Lola C. West, Managing Director of WestFuller Advisors and member of the Foundation’s Spark Prize Committee, we discussed her giving philosophy and her work in community-based philanthropy.
Lola C. West Elected to Souls Grown Deep Board of Directors
Lola C. West, Founder and Managing Director at Westfuller Advisors, joined the Board of Directors for Souls Grown Deep as of June 5, 2019. Before founding Westfuller Advisors, West served as a wealth advisor with Merrill Lynch for almost a decade. She also previously served as a senior partner of LWF Wealth Management. An active philanthropist, West is a charter member of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art and a founding member of the Council for African American Art at the Brooklyn Museum. She also serves on the board of the Hetrick-Martin Institute and the New York Women’s Foundation. West received a B.A. in Psychology from Brooklyn College and a Master’s in Urban Planning from Hunter College and holds a Certified Financial Management designation; Series 7/66; and Life, Health, and Accident Insurance license. She lives on the Upper East Side of New York City.
Saving + Investing with Ian Fuller
Ian Fuller contributes an online class on Saving + Investing to Art World Learning, an online resource to help those in the creative sector thrive by making intelligent business and financial decisions.
Art Scoping Episode 26: Lola C. West
For truth-telling in the world of finance, we turn to Lola C. West, co-founder and partner of WestFuller Advisors, a boutique investment advisory firm in New York City that builds legacies of wealth for individuals, families and institutions. A trustee of Souls Grown Deep Community Partnership and Foundation, she shares insights on the intersections among social change, culture, and finance, and the alleviation of poverty in the Deep South, and lets us into the rarefied world of investing—leavened with the determination of a woman seeking a more progressive America.\
Copyright 2020 Maxwell Anderson
NY-Based Artist Mickalene Thomas Featured in New York Times Magazine
NY-Based artist Mickalene Thomas makes paintings, collages, photography, video, and installations that draw on art history and popular culture to create a contemporary vision of female sexuality, beauty, and power. She was recently featured in the New York Times Magazine.
