News · August 30, 2019
Closer Look at Values-Aligned Investment Framework
As depicted in the below illustration, the foundation’s portfolio is comprised of two overarching buckets: Classic Investments and VAIs.
Classic Investments consist of traditional holdings, such as shares of Google or a U.S. corporate bond, which we only track the financial return.
The second bucket, VAIs, comprises traditional holdings analyzed via an unconventional lens tracking both the financial return and non-financial return (e.g. impact return, social return, environmental return, etc.) Within VAIs, there are three groupings: zero-rate investments (i.e. grants) produce no return, below-market investments (e.g. Program-Related Investments or PRIs) yield subpar returns and market-rate investments generate competitive returns.
Grants are self-explanatory and other sections of the website elaborate on the foundation’s grant making.
Within market-rate investments, we classify investments into the following three subcategories:
Provided the uniqueness of PRIs, I will elaborate on them in a separate article given they warrant a more in-depth analysis.
