Confluence is excited to announce the launch of two new educational programs this year: “The Portfolio Open House” and “Sector Inspector.” These series reflect the expansion of our Practitioners programming to foster more peer-to-peer learning about the strategy and practice of investing. Both programs are offered exclusively to Confluence members.
Portfolio Open House
The Portfolio Open House series offers a comprehensive view, from strategy through execution, of a Confluence Practitioner member's specific approach to mission and program-related investing. Each recording provides a unique opportunity to go beyond macro and sectoral trends and provides a contextualized view of the portfolio of an experienced investor. Presentations often highlight a unifying investment strategy across asset classes, as well as a review of managers and transactions from across a single portfolio.
Emerging from interest generated by a Ceniarth publication, the first Open House featured a facilitated discussion between Greg Neichen, Director of Ceniarth, and Aner Ben-Ami, Managing Director of Candide. This was followed by an Open House featuring Nia Community Foundation’s portfolio, presented by the Foundation’s founder, Kristin Hull, and facilitated by Joel Solomon, Chairman and Co-founder of Renewal Funds. These live discussions have allowed audience members to learn about specific investments within a peer’s portfolio, as well as details about their investing journey. Candid conversations about working with advisors, tapping peer networks, working with boards, and more, provide listeners an exclusive view at the challenges and opportunities faced by Confluence community members.
Building on the interest in the live webinars, Confluence has evolved the Portfolio Open House into regularly released recordings from Confluence members. This now allows us to feature more investor portfolios with a variety of foci and to build a database of resources accessible at any time for members interested in learning more about the experiences of their investor peers.
Since this transition, we have featured Edwards Mother Earth Foundation and The Russell Family Foundation’s portfolios, and upcoming releases will include a feature on the Inspirit Foundation and The Sierra Club Foundation.
Sector Inspector Calls
The Sector Inspector Series offers small group investor video calls which aim to build our collective knowledge and share perspectives around a particular investment theme. Through this series Confluences brings together experienced investors for 'safe space' discussions with other investors about their individual experiences and lessons learned. Each call in this series features a peer facilitator and acts as a virtual roundtable for investor participants to meet and learn from one another. Participants may also share insights about active and past investments made, about those opportunities in which they did not invest, and discuss the best use of varying investment vehicles depending on the sector.
Confluence hosted the first Sector Inspector call focusing on investing in Native communities. Representatives from 12 foundations joined the discussion, representing a total of over $3b in AUM. Most of the foundation attendees are already engaged in Native communities through a variety of investment vehicles, including PRIs, recoverable grants, direct equity, and MRIs. While sharing their current work, foundation representatives also discussed barriers to deploying capital in the sector, including challenges in identifying community-driven solutions for investment.
Confluence is excited to continue offering Sector Inspector calls which will explore new themes in 2019. Let us know your ideas!
