Assessment Released on SeaChange Capital Partners' The New York Pooled PRI Fund
In 2014, SeaChange established The New York Pooled PRI Fund (“NYPRI”) to connect New York City foundations interested in making program-related investments with nonprofits that need access to flexible, impact-first loans. While PRIs should be the type of impact investing most attractive to foundations, 52 years after the enabling legislation was passed, it remains a woefully underutilized tool. NYPRI was our attempt to help change that.
NYPRI has grown to include 11 foundations most of whom had not made any PRIs before joining the fund but now do substantially all of their PRIs through it.
A recent assessment of the fund – The New York Pooled PRI Fund: An Opt-in Approach to Program Related Investment --
by Dick Henriques, former CFO of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Senior Fellow at the Center for High Impact Philanthropy, suggests that NYPRI's unique "opt-in" model might be worthy of consideration in other situations.