Impact Investment

The Great Shift: Menzies Foundation's journey toward Impact Investing

AMPLIFYING IMPACT WITH MENZIES FOUNDATION: FROM UNDERSTANDING TO IMPLEMENTING IMPACT GOALS

The Menzies Foundation aims to amplify a leadership movement to support Australians to clarify their purpose, build their leadership capability and act of the ‘greater good’.

Every grant that the Menzies Foundation makes, aspires to contribute to platforms that ultimately unlock capital at scale. Consequently, it is imperative that we bring the same ambition and rigour that defines our grant making approach, to consideration of the investment of the Foundation’s corpus, and the way that this can support the development of blended capital solutions to build sustainable systemic change platforms.

In 2023 the Menzies Foundation, collaborated with our investment advisor, Walsh Bay Partners, and Brightlight Impact to support the implementation of the Impact Management Project’s Avoid (A)/ Benefit (B)/ Contribute (C) Investment Framework and prioritized the development of an impact measurement framework to monitor the effectiveness of the Menzies Foundation Investment Policy and its application. In response to these considerations, the Foundation is updating its investment policy.

As such the Foundation’s investment decisions will be informed by the following categorisations:

  • A (Avoid): will avoid harm, through divestment or through engagement
  • B (Benefit): in addition to acting to avoid harm, the Foundation will favour investments that actively benefit stakeholders
  • C (Contribution): the Foundation will leverage investments that contribute to a more equitable, prosperous, and sustainable future by investing in innovative, inclusive, sustainable, and scalable investments aligned to the Foundation’s mission and impact management and measurement framework

In support of our approach to impact investment the Menzies Foundation will take a more instrumental role in advocacy and shareholder activism by being more active in influencing proxy voting campaigns, shareholder proposals and direct approaches through Fund Manager selection.

In making this transition, we acknowledge that the Foundation’s investment policy must account for several constraints, including:

  • ensuring that the Foundation’s investment approach generates significant growth and returns to meet the funding requirements of the Foundation, and accounts for distortion of portfolio characteristics/unintended consequences.
  • the complexity of measurement, accounting for hollow virtue signalling/impact and greenwashing.
  • the size of the Foundation’s corpus and associated scale issues and liquidity constraints

View the Foundation’s Impact Investment Policy – Coming Soon

Purpose is crucial for developing the essential attributes of leadership, including resilience, empathy, adaptability and provides the foundation from which to navigate the challenges of an increasingly complex, global, tribal, and digital world.

Join the movement

Natasha Eskinja

Digital Communications Coordinator

Natasha is driven by a profound passion for both creativity and analytics, a synergy that fosters authentic storytelling in the digital realm with both innovation and integrity. 

Throughout her career, she has consistently integrated the overarching marketing and communications narrative with the emotional connections of audiences. She is currently pursuing a Certificate in Society and the Individual from Flinders University, furthering her exploration of human behaviour and the critical importance of connectedness between organisations, individuals, and communities.

natasha.eskinja@menziesfoundation.org.au