California Endowment bond seeks to expand economic opportunity

Praxis Mutual Funds^® continues its investing activities in alignment with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals by purchasing The California Endowment’s first social bond in the fourth quarter of 2021.

Fixed income alignment with the UN SDGs is one of seven strategies that are part of the new Praxis impact framework, ImpactX. A guide on how Praxis Mutual Funds uses ImpactX strategies to guide the impact potential of investments can be found in the Praxis Real Impact 2021 report.

The California Endowment is a nonprofit with a mission to achieve socio-economic advancements to underserved communities in California – particularly, solutions to make health care more accessible to their target audience. In January 2021, TCE issued $300 million in social bonds under its Social Bond Framework.

TCE’s Social Bond Framework received a second-party opinion accreditation from Sustainalytics, a Morningstar company. The accreditation report says that TCE’s Social Bond Framework aligns with the Social Bond Principles, a globally recognized set of guidelines for bond issuers allocating proceeds to socially successful projects.

According to the report, the social bond framework follows UN Sustainable Development Goals 3, 4, 9, 10, and 17, respectively. These five goals aid in achieving good health and well-being, quality education, innovation and infrastructure, reduced inequalities, and partnerships to reach the goals.

Under this social bond, TCE plans to use the proceeds to improve their charitable strategies by providing grant funding to nonprofit organizations, known as “opportunity investments.”

TCE chooses opportunity investments that seek “people power,” “reimagined public institutions” and a “health for all system” to match TCE’s organizational values. This approach emphasizes nonprofits that develop leaders to promote civic activism and empower marginalized groups, transform public institutions and create more accessible health care.

More information can be found here on how TCE chooses opportunity investments.

Through positive impact bonds, Praxis Mutual Funds seeks to include investments that generate a competitive financial return and deliver a clear and direct benefit to people and our planet. Investors participating in the Praxis Impact Bond Fund have the chance to actively make a real-world difference as global citizens.

Learn more about the Praxis Impact Bond Fund here.