The Community Investment Project accelerates the adoption of local impact investing by foundations to root wealth in communities.
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.
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Our Team
Travis Green, Project Director
Travis coordinates the Community Investment Project and helps foundations become local impact investors. Since 2017, Travis and his team have helped 35 institutions in 16 states commit to place-based impact investing. Together, those anchor institutions have ratified investment policies and programs allocating $175 million for housing, food systems, childcare, and other projects. Most recently Travis served as Vice President of Local Investment Strategy at Locus. From 2012-2017 he served as a program manager at the Aspen Institute Community Strategies Group in Washington, DC. Originally from Albuquerque, Travis is a graduate of Haverford College and University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill. He cooks and follows politics in Cambridge, Mass, with his husband, Peter.
Sean White, Senior Advisor
Sean, a community development leader who passionately believes in the power of philanthropy to transform lives and communities currently serves as Director of Strategy for Civic Partnerships at Michigan Central, Detroit’s most ambitious placemaking and economic development projects in the last half century. Previously, Sean led impact investment efforts at the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation and was responsible for deploying $10M of capital from the foundation’s endowment into Washtenaw County. Specifically, he was charged with building trusting relationships with municipal and community leaders, sourcing a robust pipeline of deals, striking partnerships with CDFIs and donor-funders, and advancing the social investing ecosystem in the county. He also had roles at United Way for Southeastern Michigan, Development Detroit, and University of Michigan. Sean lives in Detroit.