Roundtable: Our Mission-Aligned Investing Journey So Far
Earlier this year, we launched a series focused on our experiences and insights as we continue to implement a mission-aligned investment approach as a foundation. In the second installment of this series, we hear from our Treasurer and Finance Committee Chair Craig Huffman, Outsourced Chief Investment Officer Fiducient’s Senior Consultant Stephen Spencer, President Maria Pesqueira and Chief Financial Officer Elva Gonzalez.
The group reflects upon how Healthy Communities Foundation has executed this strategy and what has transpired since initial discussions in 2017.
As Craig mentioned, “It was important that our actions on the investment side are consistent with our activities on the philanthropic side.”
Listen in as the group recalls the start of the Foundation's mission-aligned investing journey and shares learnings with philanthropic peers who may be considering a similar journey of their own.
You can read the piece that kicked off our series, “Our Values in Action: Our Journey Towards Mission-Aligned Investing”, written by our Chief Financial Officer Elva Gonzalez, that explains what mission-aligned investing means to the Foundation.
Listen to the full conversation:
Who is at the Table?
Elva Gonzalez, CPA
Chief Financial Officer, Healthy Communities Foundation
Elva oversees all financial and accounting work for the Foundation. She has over 20 years of experience in financial management in the not-for-profit and private sectors.
Maria Pesqueira
President, Healthy Communities Foundation
Maria leads the Foundation with her visionary approach to justice, equity and collaboration. She has spoken about our approach to mission-aligned investing with funding peers across the country.
Craig Huffman
Treasurer & Finance Committee Chair, Healthy Communities Foundation
Craig became our Board Treasurer and Finance Committee Chair in 2021 and has been a Foundation Board Member since 2017. He is the Co-Founder and CEO of Metro Edge Development Partners, a commercial real estate company focused on building a national grid of state-of-the-art, high-performance data centers primarily located in underserved communities across the US. Before this role, Craig was a Co-Founder and Principal at Ascendance Partners, a Chicago-based private equity firm focused on commercial real estate investment in metropolitan Chicago.
Stephen Spencer, CIMA
Senior Consultant, Fiducient
Stephen provides advice and counsel to institutional clients on all areas of fund oversight, including asset allocation, portfolio structure and rebalancing, performance monitoring, manager selection, spending policy and overall investment policy. He and the Fiducient team have worked with the Foundation since 2017.
Episode Highlights
Our Commitment from the Start
CRAIG: “If the majority of our grants go to Black and Brown communities, but yet a very small percentage of our investment dollars are accessible by minority or emerging managers, particularly ones that are Black and Brown, it's inconsistent, right? And so, what we say doesn't line up with what we do. That was an easy conversation. Fortunately, our manager didn't disagree. It's always easier to say it than it is to do it. But ultimately, it's important to have all parties—Board, Staff, outsourced investment manager—all on the same page.”
STEPHEN: “You can't go from sort of zero to 100, you need to make progress, continue to reevaluate, continue to discuss. We're off on that journey right now.”
MARIA: “Being a good steward means being a good steward to our endowment, and timing it well, as well as being a good steward and responsive to our grantees and to our community.”
Sharing Our Learnings with the Field
ELVA: “I'm hoping that with our journey, we can share this, and we can influence others. I've heard from peers saying our board doesn't support or we don't know where to start, or how do you approach this? There's all these conversations and all this skepticism. So, I'm hoping that we can share this and influence others to take on this journey as well.”
MARIA: “We've been in the midst of a pandemic, a global pandemic, and how has that pandemic impacted, affected portfolios, but also, how has this pandemic brought awareness or a racial reckoning when we think of health disparities and health equity. While we are learning as we're going through this journey, we do have an opportunity to share that it is possible to be mission-aligned on both your investment side as well as your grantmaking side.”
CRAIG: “You have to identify what makes sense for you based on your desired returns, the allocation of your portfolio, and your tolerance as a board, staff and investment advisor. It takes courage and it also takes commitment.”
STEPHEN: “You have to have an open mind about things and don't let perfect be the enemy of good, so to speak. I think that phrase can apply here that it's very challenging for the average organization to be able to immediately find an ESG strategy that perfectly aligns with your mission, but there's ways that you can craft a variety of different approaches that will help you get most of the way there in most cases.”
Listen to the full conversation:
Read the first piece of this series, “Our Values in Action: Our Journey Towards Mission-Aligned Investing”, written by Elva Gonzalez that explains what mission-aligned investing means to the Foundation.
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