A panel of young people will contribute to the selection of a winning portfolio of investments that prioritise positive social and environmental impact for young people and future generations.
A group of six UK charities have pooled financial resources to launch a £50m (€58m) Endowments Investing Challenge (EIC), calling on the investment industry to come up with proposals for a portfolio of investments that prioritises positive social and environmental impact for young people and future generations.
A call for proposals for the challenge was launched last week, targeting a wide range of investors from small-scale impact firms to large asset managers. Shortlisted entrants will present their ideas to investors and young people at an event in London in March 2026, where a winning investment portfolio will be selected.
The organisations behind the initiative are The Blagrave Trust, The Children’s Society, Cripplegate Foundation, Friends Provident Foundation (FPF), the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and the Vivensa Foundation. Support has also been provided by the Robertson Trust, the John Ellerman Foundation, ShareAction’s Charity Responsible Investment Network, the Impact Investing Institute and consultancy Redington, which is now owned by the Gallagher insurance group.
Danielle Walker Palmour, the FPF’s director said on launching the call for proposals that the charities were looking for something different for their investment, and that it was not enough to think only about financial returns.
“As endowed charities we know our endowments are a privilege and a responsibility. We must use them powerfully to make sure that generations to come don’t have to face the negative consequences of our actions,” she said.
A similar project, known as the ESG Investing Olympics, which pioneered this approach to greater openness in investing decisions, was run by FPF, Blagrave and the Joffe Trust in 2020. That process, which had a broader focus on ESG-related investment portfolios, produced 59 proposals from investment service providers and was won by a sustainable growth fund run by Schroders-owned Cazenove.
Charlie Crossley, investment engagement manager at FPF told Impact Investor the 2020 project led to the three charities involved investing a total of around £33m in the Cazenove fund, which now has over £750m in assets under management.
Future generations
The success of that initiative informed the decision to return to the challenge format, but this time seeking a portfolio that prioritises long-term positive impacts on future generations, alongside financial returns.
“Young people and future generations are the most excluded from investment decisions and the investment sector and are also at high risk from the long-term impacts of decisions made today. That’s why we wanted to make sure that they had a voice and a way of expressing their priorities,” Crossley said.
To that end, the charities are working with a group of seven 18-25 year-olds, known as the ‘Future Generations Panel’, which he said would feed into all stages of the EIC.
The panel was randomly selected from over 700 applicants – a level of interest that persuaded the organisers to develop a survey in order to bring in more views from this wider group as well.
The charities are running workshops with the panellists to give them a grounding in the way the investment world works in the run up to the selection event. While the panel’s advice will play an important role, the final decision on how much of the £50m pool to invest in the winning proposal will lie with each charities’ trustee board or investment committee.
