Investing in the Strength & Potential of Our Region
What is Impact Investing?
Impact investing is a strategy that involves investing in companies, funds, or organizations with the goal of generating a financial return while also creating a positive social or environmental impact. It’s a way to align your values with your investments.
Why We Invest
For over 40 years, our foundation has invested in our community through grants and scholarships. And we recognize that our community needs more. As part of our strategic plan, we are expanding our approach by piloting the use our endowment to make direct, local investments with an initial focus on affordable housing. The housing crisis is a significant issue in our region, and traditional market forces aren’t meeting the need. We want to be an active part of the solution, not just an observer of the problem. Investing locally allows us to leverage our resources to create real momentum and address critical issues like housing shortages.
"We've built our work on Wall Street investments, and it's time to pivot dollars to Main Street - where it matters most. We have a full-blown housing crisis and complaining about it isn't changing a thing. We're proud to join with partners who are leaning in, taking action, and doing something about it."
How We Invest
Aligned with our investment policy, we are shifting to focus up to 5% of the Community Foundation’s endowment on “Main Street” investments, while the remaining 95% stays with traditional “Wall Street” assets. These local investments are designed to generate both meaningful social impact and financial returns. We are now partnering with community-led initiatives to support vital projects that face challenges moving forward due to high material and financing costs. By contributing to the financing stack, we help make these projects more feasible, easing financial burdens and enabling more initiatives to come to life. This shift in 2024 marks the beginning of a broader effort to explore additional local investment opportunities.
Where We Invest
Our initial focus is on housing, a need that has reached crisis levels in our region. There are multiple local organizations across the region working to address this need by finding creative financing solutions. Through our partnership with them, we are proud to contribute to local housing projects, ensuring that more people in our community can have access to safe, affordable homes. As we move forward, we will actively explore more opportunities to invest in needed community-driven initiatives, all with the aim of building a stronger, more resilient region.
Recent Investments
Northland Housing Partners
Northland Housing Partners (NHP) is focused on helping employers attract and retain a stable workforce by increasing the amount of market-rate housing available for employees. The nonprofit offers employers an opportunity to help solve the housing shortage by participating in loans to housing developers.
River West Investment – Duluth
Read Press Release – October 2024
- New employer-led nonprofit hopes to lure workers to Duluth with housing investments (Minnesota Star Tribune)
- Business community steps forward to address housing shortage (Business North)
- Creating more single family and multi-family housing in West Duluth (WDIO)
- Investment in Duluth Housing Development (FOX News)
