Program-related Investment

The Upstart Co-Lab Member Community has invested nearly $8 million in funds and startups, and Upstart plans to launch a $100 million impact investment portfolio for the Inclusive Creative Economy. The Upstart Co-Lab 2021 Impact Report details the impact framework, which tracks the impact of investments in the creative economy across five dimensions.

This report, published by Upstart Co-Lab, details six creative econonmy investments by the Upstart member community in 2020 and 2021. Their member community possesses Upstart Co-Lab's proprietary knowledge of funds, direct company investment opportunities, and real estate projects while maintaining discretion over their investment decisions.

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In "Cultural institutions start to put their assets to work for mission," published in ImpactAlpha, Dennis Price discusses Upstart Co-Lab's new research on "what cultural institutions need to know about investing for values and mission is the first primer on impact investing specifically for leaders of museums and other cultural institutions."

Two years ago, I had breakfast with a colleague — very nice guy who has helped build the social, or “impact,” investing sector. I shared my ideas about how to connect impact investing with the arts.

To him, investing in the arts meant buying a Picasso or a Van Gogh, collecting art objects. He agreed there was a market for fine art. But impact investing in the arts? He was dead against it.

Grantmakers in the Arts began work on capitalization in 2010. Ever since then we’ve debated not using the word “capitalization,” but it has prevailed. In our work, the term is synonymous with financial health and the resources needed to meet an organization’s mission. In 2010, GIA published recommendations for grantmakers regarding actions they could take that would improve the undercapitalized nature of the nonprofit arts sector.

Edited by Doug Borwick. 2012, 372 pages, ArtsEngaged, Winston-Salem, NC

Since the Ford Foundation’s institutional stabilization programs of the 1960s, arts funders have explored and implemented initiatives intended to promote the sustainability of arts organizations. Funding approaches, programs, and special terminology have been developed in support of the arts’ economic and social contributions to society. Artists and arts organizations are evaluated on the basis of their fiscal prudence and community contributions as well as artistic merit.

20 pages, March 2012. Grantmakers for Effective Organizations, 1725 DeSales Street NW, Suite 404, Washington, DC, 20036, (202) 898-1840, www.geofunders.org.

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   Is Grantmaking Getting Smarter? (2Mb)

Activities that are good in themselves are good for the economy, and activities that are bad in themselves are bad for the economy. The only intelligible meaning of "benefit to the economy" is the contribution — direct or indirect — the activity makes to the welfare of ordinary citizens.