TBF News:
Spring 2025
TBF has been encouraging donors to engage in impact investing for a number of years. Now it has embarked on a major effort to inform donors about the benefits of impact investing and, in the process, strengthen donors’ capacity to help build a more vibrant, prosperous and equitable city and region.
IN THIS ISSUE:
The Power of Impact Investing
Rebecca Price and Aisha Francis
Expanding the Mission First Pool
An Investment Option for TBF Donors
Dwight Poler on Impact Investing
An Interview with the Chair of TBF's Board
Three Donors on Impact Investing
Dan Raizen
Mary Kay Leonard
Bill Hannigan
The Business Equity Fund
Impact Investments that Help Businesses Owned by People of Color
Building Wealth for a Black-Owned Business
A Business Equity Fund Success Story
From Our President and CEO M. Lee Pelton
On the Cover: Photo by Jack Cohen
The Power of Impact Investing
The definitions of “investment” and “philanthropy” could not be more different. The commonly agreed upon goal of the first is to generate a profit. The goal of the second is to promote the welfare of others without expecting a return other than the satisfaction that comes with generosity.
The power of impact investing is that it combines these two goals and, in the process, offers those with Donor Advised Funds at the Boston Foundation a way to expand their capacity to do good in the world.
Last year, TBF launched its Mission First Pilot through which donors could experiment with impact investing by using recoverable grants to support vetted nonprofits in four portfolios: BIPOC Small Business Lending; Climate Justice; Equal Opportunity for Families; and Equitable Housing. More than $6 million was invested by donors across the four portfolios. And in March of this year, some 60 donors came together at the Foundation to compare notes and learn more.
Kate Guedj, Senior Vice President and Chief Philanthropy Officer, greeted those gathered. “I encourage you to see this event as the beginning of a conversation,” she said. “Currently, the Foundation manages $2 billion in assets across a range of investment options for donors with Donor Advised Funds. Our board and many of our donors are enthusiastic about the goal of generating positive social and environmental impact alongside strong financial returns.”
Rebecca Price, the Foundation’s Senior Director of Impact Investing Programs, spoke next, offering a brief review of the Foundation’s history with impact investing, including the pilot for DAF holders, the Impact Pool investment option and Bespoke Impact Investing transactions on behalf of donors. She then shared the Foundation’s developing strategy for mission-aligned investments.
“In 2005, the Foundation established a $15 million Mission First Pool, which was designed to invest in opportunities aligned with our mission,” Price explained. “These funds have been deployed and returned several times over, generating a very significant impact in our community. Recent investments have included a major commitment to the City of Boston’s new Housing Acquisition Fund, a public-private revolving loan fund established by Mayor Wu and other institutions to tackle the pressing challenge of preserving housing affordability.”
"The Foundation understood deeply and believed in our mission, and that allowed us to start our construction and finance the project at a significantly lower rate."
— Aisha Francis
“We are a college educating 1,000 students, mostly men of color,” said Francis, “but we’re operating out of a building that was not built for 21st century technology. So, how do you move out of a space while you build a new space? It has taken us 10-12 years to figure that out. Right when we were about to move forward, the pandemic was upon us and banks started failing.
“That’s when we called Orlando [Orlando Watkins, TBF’s Vice President and Chief Program Officer].” TBF provided a $1 million impact investment in the form of a bridge loan. “The Foundation understood deeply and believed in our mission,” explained Francis, “and that allowed us to start our construction and finance the project at a significantly lower rate. This is just one of the ways that impact investing is making a real difference. We wouldn’t be moving into our new building in 2026 without that loan.”
Expanding the Mission First Pool
The Boston Foundation’s commitment to impact investing goes beyond encouraging donors with Donor Advised Funds (DAFs) to engage in it through the Impact Pool investment option and Bespoke Impact Investments. Now, the Foundation is expanding the investment options for donors with DAFs to include its Mission First Pool, which is aligned with TBF’s mission of improving lives and strengthening communities, while preserving capital and enabling future grantmaking. For 20 years, TBF has tapped into this pool to support a number of important initiatives, especially in the area of housing. Now it is available as an investment option for TBF’s donors as well.
For more information on the Mission First Pool, go to www.tbf.org/mfpfaqs/. Donors are invited to connect with staff members for answers to any questions by emailing donorservices@tbf.org or calling Donor Services at 617-338-2213.
Dwight Poler on Impact Investing
TBF News: Impact Investing is a broad term. Could you define it and speak to how effective it has been and where the Boston Foundation fits in?
Dwight Poler: For the purpose of this conversation, I’ll use impact investing to mean social impact investments where meeting goals enables the return of capital. The success of impact investing depends on defining problems, setting clear goals, paths to achieve them, and incentives to do so, all up front. By clarifying expectations and accountability between the nonprofit change-makers, communities in need and funders, right from the start, the direct collaboration dramatically improves the likelihood of success, efficiency, legitimacy and outcomes. And the recycling of capital amplifies outcomes and improves sustainability.
One challenge I’m attuned to is the reality that those with money to grant or invest are often less proximate to understanding the specific dynamics of those they hope to support. Here I have found the Boston Foundation to be a great partner. It has a deep and proximate staff, closer understanding of the issues, and more tools of impact—including research, convenings and public policy advocacy—than I could ever develop in my own family foundation. With time and engagement with Boston Foundation staff, I have been able to expand both the depth and the breadth of the impact of my investments. This is a key advantage that Donor Advised Funds (DAFs) at a community foundation have over private foundations or mass market Donor Advised Fund platforms.
TBF: How do these volatile times affect the potential for impact investing?
DP: The philanthropic sector is under attack at exactly the time communities’ needs are rising. Thus, we need to ensure that every charitable dollar deployed realizes its highest impact, whether in our grantmaking or impact investing. As just described, impact investing presents the opportunities to realize sustainable outcomes, and—by recycling capital—positive outcomes over time. Investing well takes discipline, but now is the time! Community foundations, with deep and experienced staff at the ready, can help each donor think through their own portfolio goals and amplify their impact most effectively. I think often of the age-old wisdom: “Alone I go fast, but together we go far.” Working in partnership with the Boston Foundation has proven the essence of that phrase.
“I think often of the age-old wisdom: ‘Alone I go fast, but together we go far.’ Working in partnership with the Boston Foundation has proven the essence of that phrase.”
— Dwight Poler
Dwight Poler is Chair of the Boston Foundation and Founder and CEO of AccelR8 Ventures, a fund investing in early-stage climate change mitigation technologies. Dwight was a Partner at Bain Capital, where he opened and managed the European private equity business for 18 years and remains a Senior Advisor. He has been active in philanthropic activities for many years with a special emphasis on impact investing. This interview is in a condensed and edited format. We encourage you to read the entire interview at tbf.org/poler.
Photo: Tony Luong
TBF: Do you think impact investing can expand the pool of donor partners for a community foundation such as the Boston Foundation?
DP: Absolutely! Most mass market Donor Advised Fund platforms don’t offer impact investing in the many ways that the Boston Foundation does, and few family foundations have the extensive resources to do this work well. Community foundations bring far more than just donor money to bear on our community’s challenges and opportunities. While every donor is different in a variety of ways, the more we collaborate through community foundations, the more likely that we will create economic opportunity and personal satisfaction all around.
The Boston Foundation was “There at the Beginning” for so many critical improvements in Boston that we now take for granted. To the extent that funders continue to invest in turning the challenges of Greater Boston into opportunities for its future, I believe the Boston Foundation can and will attract more donors, creating a positive flywheel for our shared city.
"My relationship with the Foundation makes me feel that I’m having a real impact."
DAN RAIZEN has a deep commitment to philanthropy and impact investing, inspired by the example of his wife, Teresa Engler Raizen, who died in 2012. She was an accomplished writer who also worked for many years as Director of Development at the Waldorf High School of Massachusetts Bay. Dan eventually taught there, following a career as a software engineer.“Teaching high school gave me a sense of the challenges facing kids today,” he says. He found TBF’s recent Boston Indicators report on the challenges facing boys and men in Greater Boston aligned with much of what he learned. He likes partnering with the Foundation on impact investing because it’s “so tuned into the whole nonprofit network.” When the Mission First Pilot was announced, he invested in all four of the portfolios.
“The Boston Foundation has put in the work, done the research and made the connections,” he explains. “As a Donor Advised Fund holder, I take advantage of all of that information and insight. My relationship with the Foundation makes me feel that I’m having a real impact.”
"Impact investing is a way to...lean into the causes we care about most."
— Mary Kay Leonard
“Early in my career, I was the Commissioner of what was then called the Massachusetts Office for Children, today’s Office of Early Education and Care,” she explains. She also was a senior leader at the United Way for close to 20 years, where a major focus was on children and their families. “So, the well-being of children and families has been a central theme in my work and a passion of mine,” she says.
“The Boston Foundation is very good at finding organizations with a track record for getting money out into the community to folks who really need it,” she adds. “For my husband and me, impact investing is a way to supplement the dollars we give through our grantmaking and lean into the causes we care about most.”
"We believe that we have a responsibility to invest with purpose."
— Bill Hannigan
“We believe that we have a responsibility to invest with purpose,” says Hannigan. “In our statement, that’s expressed as seeking impact-driven portfolios that generate market-rate returns, provide measurable positive impact, and reflect our family’s values.”
Some of the values included in the statement include, “living and investing sustainably with responsibility, ethics and integrity.” The statement also lists nine focus areas, among them education, housing and climate.
The Boston Foundation introduced the Hannigans to Social Finance, a nonprofit organization dedicated to meaningful social and economic change. The Foundation was “There at the Beginning” for Social Finance with a large seed grant in 2011.
Just last year, the Hannigans made a major recoverable grant from their Donor Advised Fund to support Social Finance’s Impact First Fund, which makes catalytic investments in early-stage funds and enterprises. “Social Finance and the Boston Foundation are both part of an impact investing ecosystem,” he says, “that I think will only grow in the future.”
The Business Equity Fund
Since 2018, the Boston Foundation has been advancing a bold vision: building a thriving Black and Latino entrepreneurial class in Greater Boston by addressing a persistent barrier to business growth—access to capital.
Through the Business Equity Fund (BEF), launched under the leadership of Orlando Watkins, Vice President and Chief Program Officer, TBF makes impact investments that help businesses owned by people of color expand their teams, build wealth, and strengthen long-term success.
The Fund provides flexible financing and patient capital to established businesses poised for growth, while also serving as a cornerstone of a broader entrepreneurial ecosystem. It strategically leverages additional capital through affiliates such as Nectar Community Investments and Liquid Capital Enterprises. To date, the Fund has provided more than $22 million in financing to 40 businesses.
One of the businesses propelled by the Fund’s investment is ARKA HR Solutions, a Latina-owned firm redefining how companies attract, develop and retain talent. ARKA partners with CEOs and business leaders to optimize the entire employee lifecycle. “Our mission is to help organizations unlock the full potential of their people,” says Marcela Aldaz-Matos, CEO and co-founder with Andreina Viera Silva, ARKA’s President.
Viera Silva adds, “If you think about the ripple effect that the Business Equity Fund is having on our city—just through the loan we received—the real impact is on the hundreds of employees we support and their families.” ARKA HR Solutions was recently named a “Small Business of the Year” by the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce in the category Talent Development & Inclusion—a testament to the power of investing in businesses that are building a more equitable future.
"If you think about the ripple effect that the Business Equity Fund is having on our city—just through the loan we received—the real impact is on the hundreds of employees we support and their families.”
— Andreina Viera Silvaand
Building Wealth for a Black-Owned Business
A Business Equity Fund Success Story
In December of 2024, a series of impact investments made by the Business Equity Fund led to a remarkable success story. TARTTs Day Care Centers, Inc., a longtime provider of child care in Boston, is an example of the wealth-building power that can be unleashed when a company owned by people of color has access to the advice and capital they need to grow.For close to 80 years, TARTTs has been providing critical services to Boston’s families. Opened in 1946 by Bessie Tartt-Wilson, the Tartt family has grown the business over three generations, expanding from one child-care facility to multiple sites in Boston. The Business Equity Fund (BEF) at the Boston Foundation saw the potential in TARTTs and provided financing to the company. Now, after almost eight decades in business, TARTTs Day Care Centers has been sold—the successful culmination of decades of hard work and service to the community.
“From the very beginning we loved the Business Equity Fund’s mission,” says Ken Reed, Chief Operating Officer of TARTTs, on behalf of the family. “It was a unique approach when it came to supporting businesses. Wealth building for Black and Latino company owners is both a laudable and achievable goal if those owners are supported especially at the most critical stages of their business’s lifecycle.”
From Our President and CEO M. Lee Pelton
Martin Luther King Jr. famously said in his 1964 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, “I believe that what self-centered [people] have torn down, [people] other-centered can build up.” As we know, he believed in the importance of selfless service and compassion in surmounting social inequities so as to contribute to improving lives and strengthening communities.
Improving lives and strengthening communities is the mission of the Boston Foundation. We pursue this mission through nine impact tools—fundraising, impact investing, advocacy, grantmaking, convening, research, narrative building, engagement and capacity building.
As the federal government continues to compound its assault on the rights and freedoms of our democratic values, seeking to erase the cultural, social and even human identities of those we serve, while starving vulnerable communities of resources that sustain life and wellbeing, the Boston Foundation has redoubled its efforts not only to advance equity and justice, but to protect and sustain it.
As I’ve written before, “this is not a time to rest. It is a time to be restless—and relentless—in the pursuit of what is right and just.” The Boston Foundation was made for meeting this moment in our nation’s history.
"This is a time to be restless—and relentless—in the pursuit of what is right and just." — Lee Pelton
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