As of June 30, 2020, the foundation’s primary values-aligned investments (“VAIs”) have generated the following year-to-date returns: Wellington Global Impact Fund (-5.70%) relatively outperformed the MSCI All Country World Index (-7.06%). Charlotte Affordable Housing 5-Year Bond (+5.72%) beat the Bloomberg Barclays 5-Year Municipal Bond Index (+2.18%). Self-Help Women & Children CDs yield approximately 2%. The 12-Month CD is up +1.05% and the 24-Month CD is up +1.10%, both relatively outperforming the Bank of America 3-Month Treasury Bill at +0.60%. In summary, the foundation’s main VAIs have financially outperformed each of their respective benchmarks year-to-date. So, while these investments continue to generate a positive non-financial return, they are simultaneously outperforming in financial terms. For a broader look at Environmental, Social and Governance (“ESG”) performance, I’d like to reference Deutsche Bank’s (“DB”) research findings as of June 30, 2020. DB created their own index of the 10 largest ESG funds broken down by region (e.g. U.S., Europe, Japan and Global). Combined, these ESG funds comprise 56% of the entire ESG fund universe and so it’s a sizeable sampling. Then, DB benchmarked each of its custom ESG regional indices against the corresponding market index over the past year drawing the following conclusions: U.S. ESG funds tracked the S&P 500 Index, resulting in comparable performance. European ESG funds beat the Stoxx 600. Japanese ESG funds outperformed the Topix. Global ESG funds performed in-line with the MSCI World Index. In conclusion, all regional ESG funds have thus far either outperformed or performed in-line with their respective benchmarks over the previous year, which includes the virus crash of 2020.
