Mission Investing Forum: Building Healthy Communities
"The California Endowment has embarked on a 10 year journey to build healthy communities where children and youth are healthy, safe and ready to learn. We recognize that more than two-thirds of what determines health status has nothing to do with the provision of health care services. The key contributors are what we recognize as the 'social determinants' of health: poverty, racism and hopelessness. These factors feed the heavy burden of disease and despair in low-income communities, and these disease conditions are largely preventable…So with our eyes open, we have decided to stop dipping our feet and jump into the pool on the matter of these social determinants of health." -- Dr. Robert K. Ross, President & CEO of The California Endowment
On July 1, 2009, The California Endowment hosted a one-day forum with national and local experts to learn how foundations can enhance their place-based and healthy community missions with mission investments. See below for readings about mission investments, a Live Blog of the event and presentations from the speakers. Mission investments are broadly defined as financial investments that advance mission and generate a financial return. They can be structured across asset classes with both market-rate and below market-rate expected returns on a risk-adjusted basis.
