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SOCIAL INVESTING: FOUNDATION PROGRAM-RELATED AND MISSION RELATED INVESTMENTS

Brody Social Investing helps foundations and corporations make program-related investments (PRIs) and other mission related investments (MRIs) in the form of loans, loan guarantees, equity investments and recoverable grants to nonprofits or social purpose businesses committed to social change.

We evaluate the merits of potential PRIs and MRIs, and create deal structures that increase your program impact and effectiveness while clarifying and reducing your financial risk. We also help foundations and other institutions plan and manage PRI and MRI programs, using such resources as guidelines, user manuals, training, monitoring and trouble-shooting. BSI draws from more than 25 years of experience with investors and borrowers, and a nationwide network of foundations, corporations and other institutions that make PRIs, MRIs and other social investments. Along with a breadth of historic and current practice, we can offer you both board and staff perspectives and a multitude of approaches to new projects.

To help your organization select, structure and use social investing tools that best meet your goals, BSI can:

  • Design PRI and mission related programs
  • Review and evaluate your portfolio
  • Conduct “due diligence” reviews that analyze risk and impact
  • Structure deals, to support program objectives
  • Monitor investments and design monitoring systems
  • Train program and financial staff, trustees and borrowers
  • Identify and negotiate solutions to challenges that may prevent unusual or complex projects from moving forward
  • “Work out” non-performing investments by assessing the problems and recommending solutions

BSI is experienced in assisting PRI borrowers and investees too. We bring an investor’s perspective to the review of your business plans, assessment of system wide preparedness, the formulation and modification of operating guidelines and development of ongoing capitalization strategies. BSI can provide assistance wherever you need to broaden your perspective.

To help capitalize your community development programs, BSI draws on a variety of sources, including foundation grants and PRIs, foundation and corporate mission-related investments, public sector grants and loans and federal New Markets Tax Credits (NMTC). We can assist groups as diverse as CDFIs (Community Development Finance Institutions), nonprofit public charities, city governments and multi-sector regional collaboratives. Wherever possible, we devise strategies to enhance your ability to attract charitable, private and public resources. For example, we can help you structure or gain access to financing pools using federal New Markets Tax Credit resources that increase the expected financial return, enhancing your ability to bring in private sector equity investors.

CASE STUDIES

Note: These case studies describe projects completed by BSI consultants when we were operating as the social investing line of service within Brody • Weiser • Burns

Brody Social Investing assisted The Ford Foundation in developing a monitoring system for a growing portfolio of 85 PRIs and implemented that system during its first few years. We continued to work with the foundation to streamline procedures, provide technical training for program staff and help foundation staff reinstate in-house monitoring. Now operating as BSI, we are continuing to help the foundation monitor the entire portfolio, while also collaborating with staff to test and implement further streamline procedures consistent with risk management goals.

Through our monitoring work and periodic assistance in reviewing and analyzing new PRIs, BSI (beginning as the Social Investing line of service within BWB) also has helped the Ford Foundation develop more standardized PRI deal structures that are consistent with the needs of distinct PRI clusters, such as social ventures, loan funds and development banks. The consulting team’s assistance with Ford’s PRI processes has allowed foundation staff to continue managing PRI portfolios while concentrating more fully on program interests.

The Moriah Fund needed assistance in reviewing two PRI proposals. One would help farmer co-ops throughout South and Central America promote sustainable agriculture practices; the other would help capitalize a loan fund intended to encourage Jewish community organizations in the USA to invest in local community development projects. BSI (then operating as the Social Investing line of service within Brody • Weiser • Burns) identified the key risks of each project, assessed the financial and management capacities of the organizations, and made recommendations for structuring PRIs and other support that would protect the Moriah Fund and allow the organizations to achieve their programmatic goals.

The consulting team also helped Moriah’s staff create internal systems and processes for making additional PRIs.

Other Selected Clients
Note: The following lists selected BSI clients, including those served by Brody Social Investing while operating as BWB’s Social Investing line of service.

Fannie Mae Foundation
Hemingway Foundation
Heron Foundation
The James Irvine Foundation
W.K. Kellogg Foundation
The John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
McKnight Foundation
MIT Project on Social Investing
Ms. Foundation for Women
New York Regional Association of Grantmakers
The Lucille and David Packard Foundation
Prudential Insurance Company of America
Rasmuson Foundation
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