The Currency of Change: Investing Our Values Amidst Political Backlash
Myah Goff
As political pressures push institutions away from diversity, equity and environmental commitments, the Jerome Foundation is doubling down. Since 1964, the foundation has supported early-career artists — from experimental theater in the Twin Cities to boundary-breaking film in New York City.
Jerome Foundation President and CEO Eleanor Savage joined financial partners Anna Raginskaya (partner of the Blue Rider Group at Morgan Stanley), David Sand (co-chief impact strategist at Community Capital Management LLC), and Bari Wiley (managing director and head of business development at HarbourView Equity) for a panel exploring how values-aligned investing can serve as a lever for social, economic and environmental change.
“It’s crucial to understand that as a society, we can reorganize socially, politically and economically. It’s key that as we go forward with society, we start insisting that our values are reflected in all of our institutions,” Savage said, quoting Indigenous economist Rebecca Adamson. “The biggest key was finding an investment manager who spoke this language, who understood this, who valued it.”
Building a values-aligned investment strategy
Blue Rider Group approached values-aligned investing methodically. They began by assessing their existing investments, consulting experts, and exploring UN Sustainable Development Goals and Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) frameworks. From there, they clarified their own values, identified investment managers who shared their mission and translated those values into measurable impact themes.
“Impact investing, especially among foundations, has been a growing area of interest,” Raginskaya said. “If you’re already using 5% of your assets to advance your mission, how can you engage the other 95% to at least work in tandem with that or at least not do harm?”
Blue Ridger Group helps clients map organizational values to “investable themes,” focusing on initiatives that improve lives, foster inclusive workplaces and advance diversity, equity and inclusion. They support access to education, healthcare, housing and financial services, while promoting diverse leadership, fair treatment of employees and equitable opportunities for small and medium-sized businesses. Simultaneously, they avoid industries linked to human rights violations, firearms, private prisons and pornography.
“You’re never going to get rid of everything bad in a portfolio,” Raginskaya said. “But you want to understand if something is coming up as bad, why that is, and also understand what efforts a company might be making to improve that situation.”
Impact in action
Sand shared examples from Community Capital Management, which has spent 25 years managing impact bond portfolios. Their investments include affordable housing investments such as Westbeth Artists Housing and Manhattan Plaza in New York, and The Roost, an artist co-living space in Seattle.
“Our philosophy is that we should help clients get mission and value-alignment with their market-rate, fixed-income investments in ways that resonate for them,” he said. “We look at the underlying economic activity that’s being supported and tell the client where their money went—geographically, programmatically, thematically.”
Wiley highlighted HarbourView Equity Partners’ work in the entertainment industry, noting investments in Alicia Keys’ Broadway musical Hell’s Kitchen, as well as popular songs such as Fleetwood Mac’s “Everywhere” and “Dreams,” Bruno Mars’ “That’s What I Like,” and Avicii’s “Wake Me Up.”
“We like to partner with artists to ensure that their life work is taken care of,” she said. “We believe we are stewards of capital and culture.”
HarbourView also aims to preserve artists’ intentions, even when lucrative opportunities arise.
“When we purchased Pat Benatar’s catalog, we got a request to use her song ‘Hit Me With Your Best Shot’ in a Fortnite arcade game,” Wiley said. “While it would have been a really lucrative opportunity, we felt that supporting Pat’s intentions with the music was more important.”
Navigating political backlash
Panelists also addressed the challenges of maintaining impact investing amid political attacks against ESG frameworks. Raginskaya cited data showing a decline in grant loan diversity reports and ESG disclosures:
“Only 6 S&P 500 companies published their grant loan diversity report this year, down from 51 last year and 74 in 2023,” Raginskaya said. “Less than 10% used ‘ESG’ in the title for sustainability-related disclosures, down from 25% last year.”
Among those reporting this year, 39.7% decreased workplace representation disclosures, 52% held steady and 7.8% increased disclosures.
“We’re not totally sure what’s going on around this but people are definitely wary around language they’re using and trying not to expose themselves to lawsuits,” Raginskaya said. “In the next couple of years, the data might not be that reliable, so it’s really important that the underlying investment managers are speaking directly to the companies that they’re invested in to reality suss out what’s going on.”
In closing, the panelists affirmed that value-aligned investments are not a trade-off between ethics and returns. Morgan Stanley tracks sustainable fund performance and found that in the first half of 2025, sustainable funds outperformed traditional funds 12.5% to 9.2%.
“You can be both a good, intelligent, smart investor, achieve market returns, and be invested in the creative community,” Wiley said.
