SRI, Mission Investing and Lending
Overview
Investment Portfolios
Our investments are managed primarily through Vancity Investment Management Limited, according to an Investment Policy Statement set by our Board of Directors.lOO% of our assets are screened according to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investing (UNPRI), and we also make direct investments to achieve impact through allocation of our endowment assets.
Performance of our Donor Advised Fund Portfolio
Impact Investing at VCF
In 2011, under the close direction of our Board and with support from Vancity Credit Union, we grew the proportion of "impact investments" in our portfolio, representing a number of new and different asset classes for the Foundation, with the specific intent of achieving positive socialor environmental impact through our investment activities, as wellas a financialreturn. At the end of 2010, the NationalTask Force on Social Finance made a recommendation that Canadian Foundations strive to allocate up to 10% of their assets toward mission based investing.
We are proud to say that by the end of 2011
we had increased our proportion of direct impact investments to more than 13% of our assets.
we had increased our proportion of direct impact investments to more than 13% of our assets.
In addition to the balanced portfolios managed by our Investment Managers and our deposits held at Vancity Credit Union for lending to the members, we also currently hold or allocate the following instruments as of December 31, 2011 (figures are approximate):
| Direct Loans (Program Related Investments) to other charities | $1.6 million |
| (these loans may be priced at or below market and can include specific provisions for debt forgiveness or interest relief, which are counted against our disbursements as per CRA guidelines) | |
| Social Venture Private Equity Investments | $0.7 million |
| (Renewal2 Fund is made up of several companies and we also purchased convertible ownership shares in Save on Meats Ltd.) | |
| Resilient Fund | $2.3 million |
| (Fixed Income Impact Fund managed by Vancity Community Capital, with additional loss provisions provided through Vancouver Foundation) | |
| Loan Loss Provisions & Guarantees | $1.4 million |
| (These include risk sharing agreements for a broad range of microcredit loans, as well as specific loan pools related to local food, arts entrepreneurs, and worker ownership) | |
| Total Proportion of segregated "Impact Investments" | S6.0 million |
