Since AJL Foundation began its impact investing journey, we've shared what we've learned along the way. We've published our quarterly impact and financial performance, experimented with new investment strategies, transitioned our public equities to active stewardship, and continued asking ourselves:

How can every dollar we steward better support the communities we exist to serve?

Today, we're excited to share another step in that journey. This month, AJL's Board of Directors adopted a new Investment Policy Statement (IPS) that formally shifts our investment approach from ESG integration to system-level investing. While this represents an evolution in our investment philosophy, it is also a reflection of what we've come to believe through years of experience.

When we first began integrating environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors into our investment process, our goal was to better understand how these issues affected individual companies and investment performance. ESG remains an important tool, but over time, we came to recognize that many of the greatest risks facing our long-term portfolio—and the families and communities we serve—cannot be addressed one company at a time.

Climate change, widening economic inequality, threats to democratic institutions, labor practices, and financial system instability are not simply risks to individual investments. They are systemic risks that influence the performance of entire markets and, as a perpetual foundation, we cannot diversify away from those risks.

Our new Investment Policy Statement reflects this understanding. It recognizes that managing financially material systemic risks is not separate from fiduciary duty—it is part of fiduciary duty. Protecting the long-term health of the portfolio means contributing to the resilience of the systems upon which that portfolio depends.

For AJL, system-level investing means looking beyond security selection alone. It means considering how we allocate capital, how we exercise our rights and responsibilities as shareholders, how we engage with investment managers, and how we collaborate with other investors to strengthen the environmental, social, and financial systems that support long-term economic prosperity.

This shift also reflects our belief that all capital has impact. There is no neutral. Our grants and investments are not separate expressions of our mission. Together, they are the foundation's resources for advancing opportunity for Colorado's families and youth.

Importantly, this change does not alter our commitment to strong financial performance. Our long-term objective remains preserving the Foundation's purchasing power while generating returns that sustain our grantmaking in perpetuity. Rather, we believe that understanding and managing systemic risks is an essential part of achieving those long-term financial objectives.

Our commitment to transparency also remains unchanged. We will continue publishing quarterly impact and financial performance reports, sharing both our successes and our challenges, because we believe the field advances when institutions learn openly together.

This updated Investment Policy Statement is not the end of our journey. It is the next step in continually aligning every resource we steward with our mission and our fiduciary responsibility.

To learn more about system-level investing:

We look forward to continuing to learn alongside others who understand that long-term investing and long-term societal well-being are deeply interconnected.