Social Impact of the Growth Pool

Social Impact of the Growth Pool

As our long-term investment option for donor advised funds, the growth pool is intentionally structured to generate positive social impact alongside competitive financial returns. This approach not only expands the investment capital mobilized in support of the Trust’s strategic mission, but also allows our donors to increase the impact of their charitable dollars even before grants are made.  

Within the growth pool, we have three primary expressions of social impact: 

• Diverse Investment Managers: We believe it is important to encourage racial and gender diversity in the management of our investment portfolio, and we are committed to retaining a diverse pool of investment managers while achieving our investment objectives. We also directly engage with our investment managers to advocate for strong & effective diversity, equity & inclusion (DEI) practices, as a way of encouraging the cultivation of diverse talent across the investment industry. As of September 30, 2024, 37% of the growth pool’s assets were invested with diverse managers, which compares to only 2% of industry-wide investment assets. 
• Benefit Chicago: Within our fixed income allocation, the growth pool is invested in Benefit Chicago, a $100 million place-based impact investment fund launched by The Chicago Community Trust, The MacArthur Foundation, and Calvert Impact Capital. The goal of Benefit Chicago is to create jobs, build wealth, and tackle other social and economic challenges in our region, with a special focus on communities of color, low-income households, and historically marginalized communities.  
• ESG Integration: Over half of our investment managers integrate ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) factors into their investment processes, reducing ESG-related risk across our portfolio and incrementally tilting our investment dollars to socially responsible companies.