The Foundation’s impact investment work includes program-related investments (PRIs) made over the course of three decades to a range of intermediaries and social service enterprises across sectors and geographies, as well as a series of targeted grants to organizations and academic institutions developing new investment products and platforms, conducting research, and disseminating best practices.

Representative Impact Investments

Benefit Chicago
2015 | $50,000,000
Program-related investment in the form of equity to support a $100 million collaboration with Calvert Foundation and The Chicago Community Trust designed to give a wide range of investors an easy way to channel resources into a high-impact portfolio of loans and investments in local nonprofit organizations and social enterprises.

Housing Partnership Equity Trust 
2014 | $12,500,000 
Program-related investment in the form of a ten-year standby commitment to purchase preferred equity of the Housing Partnership Equity Trust REIT I, LLC, a nonprofit-sponsored real estate investment trust dedicated to preserving affordable rental housing across the United States.

American South Real Estate Fund
2017 | $7,500,000
Program-related investment (PRI) and a mission-related investment, both in the form of equity, to help launch a new, a triple-bottom-line real estate fund dedicated to investing in high-impact community development projects in the southern United States. It is expected that a portion of the PRI will be syndicated to other investors.

NYC Energy Efficiency Corporation
2016 | $5,000,000
Program-related investment in the form of a loan to support financing products designed for energy efficiency project upgrades in affordable residential buildings located in low- and moderate-income communities in New York City.

MB Financial
2017 | $697,297
Program-related investment in the form of a deposit to support the Arts and Culture Loan Fund, a program that provides working capital loans to community-based, nonprofit arts and cultural organizations in the Chicago area.

Representative Grants

Global Steering Group for Impact Investment
2018 | $750,000
To provide general operating support that advances its work with country-level national groups and stakeholders to catalyze global impact investment and entrepreneurship.

Urban Institute
2017 | $306,775
To advance understanding of the key goals and approaches of place-based impact investing collaborations and to facilitate knowledge exchange on this topic among interested stakeholders.

KOIS INVEST
2016 | $295,000
To support a feasibility study for the design of an impact investing holding company focused on preserving social impact for mature companies and expanding access to impact investing.

Bridges Fund Management (Impact Management Project)
2017| $150,000
To facilitate widespread adoption of a shared convention for making the social impact of investments transparent through improved goal-setting and performance measurement.

Root Capital
2018 |$125,000
To support a project that will explore the adaptability of Root Capital’s Efficient Impact Frontier model to a broader range of sectors and capital types as a tool for more effective impact measurement and management.

Updated July 2018