Content excerpted and adapted from a Stanford Social Innovation Review article authored by La June Montgomery Tabron, president and CEO of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Read the full article.
Content excerpted and adapted from a Stanford Social Innovation Review article authored by La June Montgomery Tabron, president and CEO of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Read the full article.
The W.K. Kellogg Foundation was recently highlighted in the Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR) for its work in “Expanding Opportunity in the Capital Markets through Racial Equity.”
About 11 years ago the foundation allocated $100 million of the foundation’s endowment for mission-related investments (MRIs).
“We have been investing, learning, and honing our strategy to align our mission investment work against the foundation’s deep commitment to racial equity ever since,” La June Montgomery Tabron, president and CEO of WKKF wrote.
Montgomery Tabron shared examples of WKKF’s work, which includes building diversity within the investment community, addressing the lack of business financing for people of color and an MRI to an education finance marketplace that helps students bridge financial gaps for college, to name a few.
“For the Kellogg Foundation, investing with a racial equity lens requires that we identify opportunities with people and in places traditional capital markets often overlook,” she said. “We don’t have all the answers, but we’ve been at this a long time. For me, advancing racial equity is not simply my job; it’s my life’s work.”
Montgomery Tabron shared the following pathways to action for funders:
Reflecting on your own biases and learning together.
Challenging structural racism and supporting healing.
Yielding power and fostering humility.
Amplifying community voice and wisdom.
Embracing change and exploring creative possibilities.
“We need leaders with the courage to keep this issue front and center. We need creative thinkers who will help us tackle this complex problem,” Montgomery Tabron said. “We need resources—grant capital and investment capital. And we need more voices added to the burgeoning choir that says: We need to do better. When we stand together, we are closer to creating the society that all of our children deserve.”
