About the Community Investment Project

For communities to succeed, they need assets: a strong sense of community, good infrastructure, well-trained workers, growing local businesses, inclusive and representative governments, and wealth that can be invested for the future, to name just a few. Over generations, communities built anchor institutions including hospitals, foundations, and schools from precious local assets. We believe, like the communities that built them, these institutions must leverage their many assets for long-term community benefit by bringing home a portion of their endowments--3%, 5%, 10%--to serve their mission.

The Community Investment Project accelerates the adoption of community impact investing by mission-driven anchor institutions to help communities prosper. More and more community foundations, health conversion foundations, other place-focused foundations and nonprofits recognize the opportunity and duty to invest part of their endowments for mission-aligned purposes. CIP educates boards and staff, facilitates networks and peer learning, and helps institutions develop strategies and investment programs in affordable and workforce housing, food access, living-wage work, quality dependent care, clean energy, and other community-aligned efforts.