Woods Fund Chicago’s OCIO on Using an Endowment for Impact
We sat down with Randall Strickland — A Director at the firm that serves as WFC’s Outsourced Chief Investment Officer — for a Q&A to talk about aligning investments with values. It’s a critical shift: as he puts it, “If you're trying to save the people and planet with your grantmaking, while hurting the people and planet with the 95% that you don't give away every year, then that is watering down your mission."
Last year, Woods Fund Chicago leaned into the work of more rigorously aligning our investments with our values.
As we’ve documented here, over the past several years, much of our work has been about how to shift more money into our grantmaking, and how to make sure we’re using those funds as boldly and effectively as possible. We’ve continued to enact Trust Based Philanthropy, and have steadily increased our payout over the past six years. Across our 2025 grantmaking, we distributed $6 million: the largest amount in our foundation’s history.
And, while Woods Fund Chicago’s current 15% payout is three times the industry standard you’ll see referenced below, it’s still true that the majority of our funds are invested, not granted out. Like many organizations, WFC doesn’t have an in-house investment team: we rely on an external contractor — an Outsourced Chief Investment Officer — to guide our investing. In 2025, we began our work with Bivium Westfuller, a strategic alliance between two Black-owned investment firms - Bivium Capital Partners and Westfuller Advisors. BWF serves mission-driven organizations devoted to creating systemic change.
As we have increased our payout, much of our internal work has been about confronting the tension between preserving our corpus — and therefore the Fund’s continued ability to give — with the urgency of funding critical organizing now. Now, we’re dialing in on the investment side of our work, and ensuring that those assets support our core mission and values. To offer a window into this work in progress, we sat down with Westfuller Director and Client Portfolio Manager, Randall Strickland, for a 101.
→ Woods Fund Chicago: How are you thinking about investing differently than a traditional Investment team?
→ Randall Strickland: Most small-to-mid-sized nonprofits lack internal investment teams, relying instead an Outsourced Chief Investment Officer (OCIO) like Bivium Westfuller. While a traditional OCIO focuses strictly on the financial longevity of its nonprofit clients, BWF applies a broader lens of sustainability.
We partner with many organizations deeply committed to advancing social justice. It is important to them that their endowments are mission-aligned beyond the typical 5% annual grant payout. As an OCIO, Bivium Westfuller bridges this gap by integrating a sustainability lens into standard investment management. We move beyond traditional metrics to mitigate exposure to harmful sectors, such as private prisons and fossil fuels, filtering out companies whose practices undermine the well-being of our communities and the environment. Further, research shows that companies with strong social and environmental practices can result in improved risk-adjusted financial returns.
→ WFC: So with a foundation, where the amount that they're able to give might be connected to the returns that they're getting back on their corpus, how do you balance maximized returns with more ethical investing?
→ RS: Historically, the capital markets and philanthropy have existed in separate silos. Bivium Westfuller operates at the intersection of these two worlds. We structure portfolios to achieve the financial benchmarks necessary for long-term sustainability, ensuring organizations can maintain their annual giving without eroding their principal. And again, data suggests that mission-aligned investing does not require a trade-off in financial performance; rather, competitive returns and social values can coexist within a well-managed portfolio.
→ WFC: You can get into the weeds!
→ RS: Sure. This investment approach integrates sustainability as both a risk-mitigation tool and a value driver. For example, by eliminating or reducing exposure to significant polluters and companies lacking inclusive policies, investors can avoid the long-term volatility associated with poor sustainability management. Additionally, while most organizations will seek competitive market rate returns with the majority of their portfolio, there is also a strategic role for catalytic capital. This “impact first” carve-out can be a vehicle to support essential social missions that traditional markets may overlook, providing a flexible layer of capital to drive systemic change.
→ WFC: Say the leadership of an organization wanted to overhaul and create more alignment, what does the beginning of that road look like? What are the first steps?
→ RS: We start by hosting what we call a “Listen and Learn tour” with the leadership and board members of the foundation or nonprofit, and the staff as well, ensuring that the people generally closest to the grantees are involved in defining the objectives for the portfolio. Occasionally, there'll be other stakeholders such as grantees. We reach consensus as to what impact themes are most important, what types of investments they want to avoid, tolerance for risk, spending needs, and other key inputs. From there, we build an Investment Policy Statement. An IPS is standard in the industry, outlining the purpose of the endowment portfolio. This document generally includes:
Roles and responsibilities for everyone — for us as the OCIO, the investment managers, the staff, the investment and finance committee for the organization, and the board.
Asset allocation: determining the optimal mix of asset classes to meet the organization’s financial goals.
Investment philosophy: overall investment strategy, including which investments we want to avoid, and what types of assets we’ll prioritize.
Connection to the mission: the social and environmental outcomes that they want their investments to drive.
Impact measurement — while still an evolving science, we try to develop a framework for how to see that investment managers are accomplishing the impact they aspire to achieve.
The Board has final approval of this process.
→ WFC: Where do you encounter pushback?
→ RS: Managing assets for purpose and profit is not necessarily intuitive even to the most seasoned investors. As such, ongoing stakeholder education is a core component of our process, ensuring transparency and a comprehensive understanding of the portfolio. This approach also empowers all parties to contribute meaningfully to key portfolio-related decisions. Additionally, Nonprofit Boards turn over every few years, so continuity is critical to maintaining a shared understanding of portfolio dynamics. As such, mission-aligned investing requires continuously educating all stakeholders as to why this is both a robust investment strategy, and consistent with fiduciary responsibility.
→ WFC: We’re in a moment of a lot of disruption, a lot of uncertainty, a lot of fear. Has anything changed for the way that you all work at this moment?
→ RS: Despite a landscape that involves political and legal attacks on DEI and climate-related initiatives, our experience has seen mission-driven organizations continue to prioritize equitable investment outcomes in their endowment investments. For example, many seek to address the industry's significant imbalance in the ownership of firms who manage assets. This is not diversity for the sake of diversity, instead ensuring qualified firms that have been ignored by the broader institutional investor community, receive proper consideration. Our partner organizations remain fearless in a very challenging environment, ensuring that capital remains dedicated to community outcomes—supporting underrepresented groups and environmental justice—rather than being diverted to matters that don’t drive equitable outcomes.