Our Legacy
A commitment to sustainable impact
The Sustainable Development Goals are at the heart of IDP Foundation’s work within education and beyond
Since IDP Foundation (IDPF) co-founders, Irene Pritzker and her daughter Liesel Pritzker Simmons first visited Ghana in 2008 it was clear that a focus on supporting local changemakers was key to achieving long-term impact. While IDP Foundation’s work in advancing progress to SDG 4 on education is at the core of our work (see IDPF’s education work) this commitment to learning and development drives all of our philanthropic work. Our philosophy of empowering key organizations or individuals best placed to effect change underpins all of IDPF’s grant-making, impact investing and collaborations.
Impact in Numbers
Impact Investing
To achieve sustainable change, we believe in the ethos of impact investing which encourages investors to consider both social and financial returns
Since the dawn of the industrial revolution the world has been split into three core sectors – public, private, and non-profit. However, a fourth sector focused on purpose as well as profit has emerged driven by philanthropists and investors looking to create social and environmental impact through market-based solutions. Impact investing has fast become a significant component in the global focus on a world beyond aid.
To reach the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals philanthropic actors can play a role in catalyzing private sector investment into innovative solutions to social and environmental problems. As an active funder, IDP Foundation believes in the power of the fourth sector in engineering sustainable change through impact investing.
The IDP Foundation made its first impact investment in 2013 and within just five short years we proudly achieved a 95% mission-aligned portfolio. This was achieved in large part to our unrelenting commitment and diligence to analyzing and measuring the impact of the funds in which we invest. We continue to collect and analyze metrics to better understand the outcomes and achievements of our investments as they relate to environmental, social, and governance. Sustainability Accounting Standards Boards and Morgan Stanley Capital International criteria allow us to gauge how efficient our impact is. Our financial consultants, Graystone Consulting, help us keep a meticulous eye on how we invest. They use quarterly reporting to make sure we understand, develop, and improve our way of investing with a social focus.
Our investment goals are aligned to the United Nations implemented the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and we proactively gather data from individual fund impact reports and fund managers to create a profile that systematically measures each impact fund according to the SDGs.