Continuing our Impact Investing journey
We use our investments to resource our charitable activities ‒ our ambition is to make an impact with our investments too.
In late 2024, we shared how we were rethinking our approach to the investments and assets that Barnwood holds. In this blog we will tell you how this is going.
Creating an investment strategy
We have now developed an investment strategy for Barnwood Trust. As a charitable foundation, we use our investment portfolio to provide the financial resources we need to deliver our charitable activities. Our long-term ambition is to achieve impact through our investments, as well as through our direct work.
To help us describe our investment strategy, we have developed a Spectrum of Capital (based on a model developed by Esmee Fairbairn Foundation). This maps how we allocate our investment portfolio across a range of different types of investment ‒ each type bringing different financial returns and impact outcomes.
At one end of the Spectrum of Capital are ‘sustainable’ and ‘enhanced sustainable’ investments. These are investments on the open market that are as conscious as possible. At the other end is ‘funding’ which is purely about impact, with no financial returns for the Trust. In between these on the spectrum are ‘impact’ investment which works towards specific impact aims whilst also seeking market-rate financial returns, and ‘social’ investment which start with the impact first and prioritise financial returns second.
Putting the strategy into practice
This spectrum now guides our investment practices. We seek to achieve impact in our investments at a global, national and Gloucestershire level ‒ the more local the investment, the greater the focus will be on impact aligned with our charitable aims and objectives.
In March 2025, our Board of Trustees approved new investment policies:
(i) Investment Policy;
(ii) Impact Investment Policy; and
(iii) Social Investment Policy.
These policies have been developed from work we have done with the Impact Investing Institute, to help us put investment principles into practice. We are grateful for their advice and support.
We are now starting to implement these policies. Below is a rundown of how it works for each type of investment.
Sustainable investing at Barnwood
We have appointed a new external investment manager at Goldman Sachs to manage the part of our global investment portfolio which covers ‘sustainable’ and ‘enhanced sustainable’ investing.These investments go further than ‘environmental, social and governance’ (ESG) investments by asking what a company does to support people and planet, when considering investing in them. Working with Goldman Sachs, we have allocated £10 million to this.
We use the United Nations’ Strategic Development Goals (SDGs) as a guide for this sustainable investing ‒ asking Goldman Sachs to identify investments that deliver strong outcomes against these goals. We recognise that some of the SDGs are not as close to our charitable aims and purpose, so we will work with Goldman Sachs to improve the alignment of our investments over time.
Goldman Sachs provide regular updates on the performance of the Trust’s investment portfolio against the SDGs. This helps us to demonstrate the impact of our investments. The following table shows our portfolio’s performance, as at 30th June 2025:
Find a high quality version here:
Impact investing at Barnwood
‘Impact’ investments at Barnwood are UK-wide and will focus on the wellbeing of societies and individuals. That is, the £5 million funds we deploy through our impact investment policy will have positive influences on people more broadly. This could be in Gloucestershire, or it may be elsewhere in the UK but demonstrate a successful model that could be replicated in Gloucestershire.
We will also prioritise investments that have positive impacts for disabled people and people with mental health conditions, or where we see positive opportunities to influence and advocate for disabled people’s rights.
For impact investments, we want to see measurable impact alongside financial returns which are alongside full market rates of return.
Our impact investment portfolio will be managed by us at Barnwood Trust. As we start out on our impact investing journey, we have identified 9 priority areas for these investments:
We have just made our first commitment to impact investing. This is for £500k in Ascension Fund III, this is a long-term investment for 10 years. The fund seeks to invest in technologies which will bring climate innovations to mass-market, strengthen financial systems and infrastructure and advance efficient healthcare delivery.
Social investing at Barnwood
‘Social’ investments at Barnwood link directly to disability and mental health in Gloucestershire only. The £3.5 million funds we allocate through our social investment policy contribute to our charitable aims ‒ that disabled people and people with mental health conditions are equal, empowered and their rights are upheld.
Social investment is repayable capital, such as a loan, to help organisations achieve their social mission. We consider low rates of financial return to achieve a high impact from these investments, and our aim is also to ensure that this capital is recycled into future social investments.
Our social investment portfolio is managed by us at Barnwood Trust. To date, we have made social investments totalling £265,000 to 2 Gloucestershire based social enterprises/charities. We are now working with other local organisations on potential investment opportunities.
Learning to deliver impact and social investments
We have an ambitious investment strategy, and we are still learning. To achieve our ‘impact’ and ‘social’ investment ambitions, we need to have the right knowledge, skills and experience, and to hone our investment practice ‒ both in terms of management of the portfolios and governance.
To help us with this, we have partnered with Better Society Capital. They can identify potential UK investment opportunities which have the impact and financial profile we are aiming for. In time, and with the support of Better Society Capital, we hope to better articulate the areas of investment we are interested in and the impact we aim to achieve through our impact investing; and through our social investing locally.
Get in touch
As a place-based investor, we are not well connected to the impact investment space which is London-centric. We have learned that we need to build our network of like-minded investors and advisors to help us realise our ambition.
If you would like to know more about our investing journey or to share good investment practice please get in touch with Nicola Mosley, our Chief Operating Officer at nicola.mosley@barnwoodtrust.org