KL Felicitas Foundation Offers Detailed Model for Impact Investing

In an effort to show that impact investing can both meet its social and environmental impact objectives and deliver financial returns, the KL Felicitas Foundation has published a report detailing its investment strategy and results.

 

The organization’s founders, impact pioneers Charly and Lisa Kleissner, reasoned that making their investments public would remove any mystery surrounding how impact investing is done, demonstrate how it makes a difference, and show that any fund can measure its investments’ impact and financial returns. The KLF Foundation’s portfolio, which is run by San Francisco-based impact investment specialist Sonen Capital, had $9.5 million in assets as of Dec. 31, 2016.

 

“If everyone uses it, then we can compare notes,” Charly Kleissner said of the report, titled, “In Pursuit of Deep Impact and Market-Rate Returns: KL Felicitas Foundation’s Journey.”

 

The couple is also the force behind Toniic, a network of impact investors, about two-thirds of whom have pledged to run a 100% impact investing portfolio. This 100% impact group—with portfolios ranging in size from $3 million to $1 billion—have all agreed to share their financial and impact results among themselves, and to have these results researched and reported on anonymously, Kleissner says.