Foundations

A recent New York Times article on program-related investing highlighted the $10 million equity stake the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation took in Liquidia Technologies. Some in the foundation world are concerned that the investment blurred the line between profit-making and charity. We and our Braintrust advisor Stephen Viederman say foundations should blur those lines—as long as they deploy their endowment assets when they do so.  We would argue that foundations should use all of the tools available to them to meet their mission and purpose: grants, program-related investments and, most powerfully, their endowment assets.