The California Wellness Foundation and The Sierra Club Foundation Join
the Community Investment Guarantee Pool with Million Dollar Commitments
New investments will help fuel change in the fight against climate change, and for environmental justice and health equity
October 4, 2022 – Today, the Community Investment Guarantee Pool (CIGP) welcomed two new guarantors: the California Wellness Foundation and the Sierra Club Foundation. The CIGP is a first-of-its-kind platform that allows foundations and other impact investors to combine resources and expertise by establishing a one-stop-shop for intermediaries and other market participants in the climate, affordable housing and small business sectors to access highly flexible guarantees. The addition of the California Wellness Foundation and the Sierra Club Foundation will increase the Pool’s capacity to backstop innovative affordable housing, small business and climate change finance solutions.
The California Wellness Foundation has joined the CIGP with a $5 million guarantee commitment.
“Through both our grantmaking and our mission-aligned investment strategy, the California Wellness Foundation is committed to advancing health equity by promoting affordable housing and entrepreneurship opportunities,” said California Wellness Director of Investments, Anabel Giron. “Our $5 million investment in CIGP will help us advance our goals in these areas and bring much needed capital to under-resourced communities. We appreciate CIGP’s expertise and capacity to execute on its mission.”
The Sierra Club Foundation has joined the CIGP with a $1 million guarantee commitment.
“The Sierra Club Foundation is deeply committed to finding all tools of impact and finance to address climate change and environmental justice, and our $1 million investment in CIGP is one of the ways we are doing that,” said Sierra Club Foundation Executive Director, Dan Chu. “This is an emerging area of impact investing and we’re excited about the ways our early investment will act as a catalyst to attract other investors to support climate justice.”
“Whether we’re talking about accessing capital for small businesses or being able to transition to cleaner sources of energy, we know that opportunities have been distributed in ways that reflect the inequities embedded in our society, and that addressing these challenges will require bringing to bear all of the resources and tools at our disposal,” said CIGP Executive Director, Jim Baek. “Together, this group of guarantors is making more and new types of community development transactions possible by putting more of their balance sheet strength to work in service of impact and equity. We are thrilled to have the California Wellness Foundation and the Sierra Club Foundation join us on our mission and look forward to working together.”
About CIGP
The Community Investment Guarantee Pool (CIGP) is a financing tool launched in December 2019 by impact investing organizations to create a pooled commitment of financial guarantees for intermediaries in affordable housing, small business and climate finance. CIGP accelerates community investments by more fully leveraging philanthropic balance sheets for mission. The initial guarantors that helped make CIGP possible are The Kresge Foundation, The Annie E. Casey Foundation, The California Endowment, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Common Spirit Health, Gary Community Investments, Jessie Ball duPont Fund, Phillips Foundation, Seattle Foundation, Virginia Community Capital, and Weingart Foundation. Since launch, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Arnold Ventures, Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation have also joined as guarantors. Learn more about CIGP by watching this short video produced by The Kresge Foundation.
About LOCUS Impact Investing
LOCUS serves as program manager for the Community Investment Guarantee Pool. LOCUS is a national non-profit consulting organization and registered investment advisor that works with foundations and mission-driven investors wherever they are on their local impact investing journey to help them create lasting, meaningful change in their communities. LOCUS partners with mission-driven institutions to unlock more of their assets and deploy dollars to catalyze equitable economic development and make community-informed investments guided by innovative, effective and equitable practices. LOCUS is a wholly owned subsidiary of the non-profit, VCC Social Enterprises. For more information about LOCUS visit: https://locusimpactinvesting.org/.
###