Pledges AJL Foundation has signed and stands behind: 

The Investment Manager Diversity Pledge

Becoming a signatory to the investment manager diversity pledge allows your organization to publicly demonstrate its commitment to diverse and inclusive investment management practices and places your organization at the heart of a community of foundations and endowments seeking to ensure a level playing field for minority and women investment managers. Your commitment acknowledges that hiring a diverse pool of quality investment managers is not contradictory to the goal of maximizing returns or fiduciary standard of care rather it demonstrates a focus on finding the best investment management talent to build wealth in communities of color and among women.

An Open Letter to Philanthropy, from People of Color-led, Movement-Accountable Public Foundations

It’s time that philanthropy acknowledges the essential role that people of color-led, movement-accountable foundations play in the larger philanthropic ecosystem. Investments in these institutions are a key strategy for advancing racial justice and self-determination. Therefore, it is critical that foundations like ours not just exist but be well-resourced and treated with respect.

Letter - Emergency Charity Stimulus

We support an emergency charity stimulus bill to mandate increased payouts for private foundations and donor-advised funds. 

Due Diligence 2.0 Commitment

To catalyze movement of capital to BIPOC managers, the undersigned asset owners, consultants, and financial intermediaries, on behalf of asset owners who value BIPOC manager inclusion, commit to making the following shifts in our due diligence processes: 1) Consider Track Record Alternatives, 2) Expand What it Means to Work Together, 3) Reassess Assets Under Management as a Risk Metric, 4) Respect BIPOC Time, 5) Contextualize Fees, 6) Include Historically Unrecognized Risks, 7) Be Willing to Go First, 8) Offer Transparency about Remaining Hurdles, 9) Provide Detailed Feedback.

THE 2020 BELONGING PLEDGE – A COMMITMENT TO ADVANCE RACIAL EQUITY | Confluence Philanthropy

We commit to discussing racial equity at our next investment committee meeting. We will move our agenda forward on this. We will share our next steps and results (perhaps privately), so that we can help to identify industry-wide barriers and the technical resources required to advance the practice of investing with a racial equity lens.

Amalgamated Foundation Launches Hate Is Not Charitable Campaign | Amalgamated Bank

The campaign includes more than 20 donor networks, foundations, and Donor Advised Funds (“DAF”) providers that collectively represent over $1B in assets and growing. The campaign is calling for DAF providers to exercise their legal discretion over grants recommended by their donors and adopt pro-active policies to ensure that funds do not flow to organizations that promote hatred. Additionally, the Hate Is Not Charitable Campaign calls for “donors of conscience” to demand that their own donor advised providers adopt such policies.

Investor Statement in Support of Ending the Subminimum Wage - Adasina

A “subminimum wage” is a wage paid that is less than the federal or state mandated minimum wage. Federal law allows companies to pay less than the legally mandated minimum wage to certain groups of workers. Tipped workers are the largest group paid a subminimum wage and represent approximately six million people in the United States. In 2020, a coalition of over 65 institutional investor groups representing over $538 billion in managed assets, signed an Investor Statement calling on companies to end the subminimum wage. In solidarity with these investors, we created a public investment Exclusion List that includes all companies excluded from our portfolios for paying their employees a subminimum wage.

To share additional pledges, questions or feedback, please don't hesitate to reach out to Kristi Petrie at kpetrie@ajlfoundation.org.

Last updated on 6/16/2021