Monthly roundtable series and other programs for JFN members who seek to ensure their endowment investments are mission-aligned with their philanthropic goals by investing in ventures that aim to be financially profitable while also achieving specific social or environmental goals. 

Offerings include:

Monthly Impact Investing Roundtable Series

Facilitated by JFN Board Member Vanessa Bartram, each month's lively and action-oriented roundtable (conducted online) features a master class and two investment roundups, all led by JFN members and designed to encourage shared learning and shared action along our impact investing journeys.

Whether you are new to impact investing or a seasoned veteran, the roundtables will help you to build skills, deepen your collaborations and deal access, and add meaning to how you're managing your money. JFN members can watch videos of past sessions on the "Impact Investing" playlist on JFN's Members-Only Videos page (scroll down for Impact Investing Roundtable series playlist). Find the next session on our events calendar or email [email protected].

A Guide to Jewish Impact Investing

Written by JFN member Michael Lustig (one of the instructors of the new certificate course), this is the first-ever guide to Jewish impact investing, investment in ventures that aim to be financially profitable while also achieving specific social or environmental goals.

This free, downloadable guide provides a brief overview of impact investing concepts and defines and characterizes what makes Jewish impact investing unique. The guide, part of JFN's Guides for Intelligent Giving series, also features illustrative case studies and a list (one that will be updated on an ongoing basis) of various Jewish impact investing resources and specific investment options.

• Watch an interview with Michael Lustig.
• Listen to Michael Lustig and Roundtable Facilitator Vanessa Bartram in this episode of JFN's "What Gives?" podcast.

Certificate Course in Jewish Impact Investing (January-February 2022)

JFN partnered with New York University to offer an eight-week online course.

Participants earned an NYU Executive Education Certificate and, with it, the knowledge and skills to begin making their (or their foundation’s) assets yield social as well as financial returns. 

Taught by two experts on Jewish impact investing, this course introduces you to a new and evolving financial field, with a particular emphasis on developments in Israel and the broader Jewish world. You’ll learn about a wide variety of impact investing vehicles and how they differ from traditional investments. You’ll also gain an understanding of the tools available for measuring an enterprise’s environmental, social and other impacts.

Tailored for Jewish Funders Network members and those who are eligible for membership, the course consists of eight 90-minute Zoom sessions that combine lecture, discussion, and interactive projects. A modest amount of reading and other coursework is required, culminating in a personal project to be presented at the end of the course.

• Visit the course page
• Download a PDF about the course
• Email [email protected] to be notified when the course is offered again.

Matching Grant Program

JFN has twice partnered with the Edmond de Rothschild Foundation on a matching grant program designed to expand Israel’s impact investing ecosystem. Congratulations to the 15 NGOs, from a variety of areas, including the Arab society, regional entrepreneurship development, impact real estate, and agricultural and food technology, that benefited from the most recent round of matching grants. 

Issue Exploration Track at JFN's October 2021 Israel Ideas Festival

This intensive workshop included the rare opportunity to hear the inspiring personal story of keynote speaker, Diane Isenberg, founder of Ceniarth, which invests globally in rural, marginalized places with an emphasis on agriculture, affordable housing, financial inclusion, and energy access. The session also explored three Israeli impact investments in Israel in real estate, impact tech, and employment. A video of this session is on JFN's Members-Only Videos page (Israel Ideas Festival Premium Content playlist).

Ogen – Free Loan Fund, a JFN member that makes interest-free loans to Israelis in need, is now offering two new impact investing options.

The first new option, in partnership with Keshet DAF, Israel’s first-ever donor-advised fund (launched in 2019 by JFN Israel and partners), enables Keshet account holders to allocate a chosen sum (minimum ILS 100,000) from their fund toward an Ogen Impact Loan. The funds will be loaned out to small businesses and nonprofits through Ogen, before being returned, with 1 percent annual interest, back to the donor's Keshet DAF account after five years.

Episode 22 of What Gives? the Jewish philanthropy podcast from Jewish Funders Network.

JFN members and impact investors Michael Lustig and Vanessa Bartram share what you need to know about this exciting tool for growing your impact and ensuring your investments align with your values. Michael is the author of JFN's new Greenbook, "A Guide to Jewish Impact Investing," and Vanessa facilitates JFN's monthly impact investing roundtable series.

Authored by JFN member and impact investor Michael Lustig, this is the first-ever guide to Jewish impact investing, investment in ventures that aim to be financially profitable while also achieving specific social or environmental goals.

This free, downloadable guide provides a brief overview of impact investing concepts and defines and characterizes what makes Jewish impact investing unique. The guide, part of JFN's Guidebooks for Intelligent Giving series, also features illustrative case studies and a list (one that will be updated on an ongoing basis) of various Jewish impact investing resources and specific investment options.

Download high-resolution PDF (22 MB)

Download lower-resolution PDF (4 MB)

Listen to a podcast about impact investing

Episode 19 of What Gives? the Jewish philanthropy podcast from Jewish Funders Network.

Cintra Pollack, an investor, philanthropist and JFN board member, talks about impact investing, generational differences, and balancing her family philanthropy with her Jewish Federation involvement.

Cross-posted at eJewish Philanthropy

Public-private partnerships that mix impact investing and grants offer a new model for creating “naturally occurring affordable housing”. A philanthropist and impact real-estate investor explains how.

Two new reports from Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors explore impact investing:

Sometimes you can support a worthy project or field and can get a return on your money. Yes, a return.

It’s what’s known as impact investing, essentially investments made in organizations, funds or companies with the intent to generate a social or environmental impact as well as a financial return. It includes for-profit companies that intend to have a social impact using their business model as well as nonprofits with revenue streams.

Some philanthropists use impact investing as a complementary tool with their grantmaking as a way to diversify their portfolio or to use the returns as a way to fund more giving. Either way, the attraction is the same: to make money and achieve a measurable impact.

The term impact investing was first coined only in 2007, but it has acquired some high-profile champions including the Omidyar Network, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Case Foundation, which all believe in the premise that capital markets can be a catalyst for positive social change.

According to the Global Impact Investing Network, a nonprofit that helps impact investors, impact investments typically have these characteristics:

• A positive social or environmental impact, such as to increase access to education, improve healthcare services, promote affordable housing or enhance workforce development. For now, these investments are typically made in developing and emerging markets. Impact investing has a very small footprint in the U.S.
• A return on the money invested or, at minimum, a return of the initial capital invested.
• Measurable results. Investors need tangible evidence that what they’re funding is having a positive effect.

Investing for social and financial returns is a laudable concept, but how does it actually play out? A definitive picture has yet to emerge. Impact investing is still in its infancy, so there isn’t much in the way of hard data, though some observers suspect too many investors in the field are seeking a return at the expense of impact.

 “Today, impact investors have developed a more realistic set of expectations about what is possible. Most now realize that with rare exceptions, it’s not possible to generate both high financial returns and high social impact,” Eric Nee wrote in the Stanford Social Innovation Review. “To create real social impact, investors have to work harder, take on more risk, and accept lower returns. Unfortunately, many impact investors aren’t willing to do that.”

At the same time, numbers can also be skewed by the fact that some investors are willing to absorb a lower return in order to have an impact. Some investors may view that as a form of philanthropy minus the charitable tax deduction. And like with any investment, returns will vary based on the sector, location, the asset class and skill of fund managers.

For now at least, impact investing should be just one part—and maybe a small one at that—of any financial portfolio that supports a program of charitable giving. Still, it remains an innovative way to support businesses and sectors that want to have a positive social impact. Or, as Matt Bannick and Paula Goldman of the Omidyar Foundation wrote: “Indeed, we would assert that the primary goal of impact investing is to see and nurture socially impactful innovations so that commercial markets can eventually take them to scale.”

If impact investing may sound appealing, there are many funds—most on the small side when it comes to assets—that can facilitate your entry into the field. You can begin your research at ImpactBase, an online directory of impact investment vehicles. The nonprofit Impact Assets puts out the ImpactAssets 50, a showcase of leading investment funds.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

• Essentials of Impact Investing (Mission Investors Exchange)
• Primer: A Short Guide to Impact Investing, Case Foundation; an excellent introduction to the facets of impact investing, including many links to books, guides, and articles about the field.
• Article: Philanthropy’s New Frontier—Impact Investing
• Article: Sectors, Not Just Firms, Stanford Social Innovation Review; a series of articles from the Omidyar Network on the need for a sector-based approach to impact investing.
• Articles: When Can Impact Investing Grow Up? Stanford Social Innovation Review; essays on many aspects of impact investing, including some that why achieving impact and market-rate returns is often a lot easier said than done.
• Article: Philanthropists Weigh the Returns of Doing Good, The New York Times.
• Blog post: 7 Things We’ve Learned About Impact Investing in 7 Years, by Judith Rodin, president of The Rockefeller Foundation.
• Blog post: Give Impact Investing Time and Space to Develop, by Sasha Dichter, chief innovation officer, Acumen.
• Op-Ed: It’s Time to Cut Through the Hype of Impact Investing, by William Burckart, Chronicle of Philanthropy.
  
  

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By Rafi Musher (JFN member)

Our first social venture used a PRI in 2012 and I invested with my first PRI in 2013 at the age of 45. I don’t think you need to wait to be innovative in driving social benefit — in fact — you need to be impatient, rather than patient.

According to our research at Stax Inc. 2/3 of the Fortune 200 are on non-profit boards and they average 2 non-profit boards. It isn’t just the billionaires signing a pledge, it’s senior leadership, all the way to millennials. We know that the faster we learn of opportunities to have impact, the faster we can put those to work. Here’s an area that has worked for me and others I know, seeking to have an outsized impact.