At Commonfund Forum 2025, Caroline Greer, Managing Director, Commonfund OCIO and George Suttles, Executive Director, Commonfund Institute sat down with panelists, Margot Brandenburg, Senior Program Officer – Mission Investments at Ford Foundation, and Nicole Systrom, Chief Impact Officer at Galvanize Climate Solutions to explore mission-aligned investing.
This market has been valued up to $1.5 trillion in total assets, and institutional investors’ interest in this strategy set has been on an upward trend according to sources including Commonfund’s Benchmarks Studies. The session lifted up key concepts, frameworks, and considerations for fiduciaries when approaching this work, including but not limited to those highlighted below.
1. Mission-aligned investing is a way of thinking. Investors have been able to integrate mission alignment into their investment strategies from various roles as fund investors, board members, and impact strategists, and in various asset classes from venture capital to public equities. Panelists discussed asset allocation, noting that there are mission aligned investing opportunities across asset classes. To do mission-aligned investing from any vantage point, fiduciaries must engage in the investment process with intentionality, a focus on financial return, and attention to impact measurement and management.
2. Mission alignment is not mutually exclusive from any other strategy. Panelists agreed that impact, mission-aligned investing more broadly are not some “separate other thing,” when compared with what is considered conventional investing. According to data shared, a majority of the impact market is invested in market-rate opportunities that are intended to meet or exceed their benchmarks. The market structures and methods of analysis are often the same, with the addition of intentionality and impact measurement.
3. There is no single framework for understanding mission-aligned investing, but the panelists shared two that explore the breadth of opportunities under this umbrella term:
One is a range of impact investing spanning from philanthropy (solutions may outweigh any consideration for financial return) to traditional investing (emphasizing profit without regard for impact or ESG factors). In between lie responsible investing (e.g., negative screening), sustainable investments (positive screening), thematic (seeking solutions to inequality, energy, health, etc. alongside financial return), and impact-first (impact considerations take precedence over financial returns, e.g. supporting innovation and creating enabling environments with higher financial risk).
The second is the ABC framework: Avoid, or screening out investments antithetical to your mission; Benefit, or make investments that might have a positive impact; and Contribute to solutions (thematic, e.g. actively decarbonizing or moving the mission forward).
4. Language is important. As of the past number of years, terms such as ESG have become politicized and distorted, so conversations like this that explore what impact actually means are more important than ever.1 Panelists urge investors to talk about underlying issues: economic productivity, carbon intensity and climate, gender equality, housing access, or other areas of concern that also relate to financial return. Starting with the most important issues to your institution and community and learning to apply positive or negative screens or active, thematic investments to your portfolio can help mitigate some of the risk related to specific terminology.
5. Data is a constraint and a market opportunity. In absence of federal reporting standards related to impact and ESG, investors and investment managers are left with ad hoc data sources, each with varying methodologies and inputs. It has been left to the private market to find solutions to these constraints. Speakers on the panel are investing in companies striving to close gaps in data standards to further develop the field of impact investing and crowd in investment.
For more Forum session recordings and takeaways, see Commonfund Forum - Research Center | Commonfund | Asset Management.
Commonfund will continue to explore field wide issues and opportunities for mission-aligned investing as we focus on building our own capabilities.
