The Rhode Island Foundation in recent years has increasingly taken a more active role as a community convener, planner and funder. That evolution, as Neil D. Steinberg, foundation president and CEO, calls it, was most recently highlighted by the launch of its Impact Investing initiative.
Steinberg called the $10 million initiative a “supplement” to the 1,500 to 1,600 grants awarded by the foundation each year. One difference, though, is these investments carry the hope of both a social and financial return for the foundation.
So far, he added, the foundation has committed to the purchase of $300,000 worth of Urban Greens Food Co-op preferred stock and a $1 million bridge loan to R.I. Public Radio.
The evolution of the foundation as a more active player in statewide issues, especially within the business community, dates to 2012. That’s when it invested more than $1 million in resulting ideas from its “Make It Happen Rhode Island” brainstorming event to kick-start economic growth.
In December 2016, Steinberg became one of four Partnership for Rhode Island board officers. The partnership brings business and academic leaders together to improve the lives of workers in Rhode Island. The four officers – CVS Health Corp. CEO Larry Merlo, Hasbro Inc. CEO Brian Goldner, IGT Global Solutions Chairman Don Sweitzer and Steinberg – lead an 11-person group on projects based on four core values: business attraction, workforce development and skills training, improving K-12 education, and infrastructure investment.
Then in February, a foundation-commissioned report by Boston’s Next Street Financial LLC, entitled “Rhode Island Business Supports,” found most of the state’s companies employ fewer than 20 people.
Together, those four actions are an “expansion of our leadership and commitment to the community,” said Steinberg.
The foundation’s aim, he said, is to “link” its three major areas of concern: education, health care and economic security.
Tom Giordano, Partnership for Rhode Island executive director, traces the group’s roots to a 2016 Brookings Institution report, which called for more CEO-level collaboration. The partnership has been involved with two statewide projects: production of the state’s Amazon HQ2 pitch and enrolling 20 school principals and superintendents into CVS’ internal management academy.
The Impact Investing initiative marks the first time the foundation has purchased stock in a company “to support” its work, and follows a trend at community foundations across the nation. Nonprofits, for-profits and government agencies are also eligible.
Steinberg said he expects the foundation will see “a reasonable, market-based return” on its investments.
