Cambridge Associates Client Story
Esmée Fairbairn Foundation
As one of the UK’s leading independent funders, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation is demonstrating how endowed capital can support long-term mission alignment.
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Working with Cambridge Associates, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation developed a more integrated approach to investing—one that treats climate and nature-related risks as financially material, values patient capital, and seeks to ensure the endowment advances the Foundation’s broader goals.
Together, the organizations built a framework designed to integrate mission, risk, return, and implementation rather than treat them separately.
The result has been an approach grounded in practicality rather than ideology: start with clear beliefs, build governance around them, and make steady progress over time.
“We realized that if part of the portfolio was contributing to the very problems our funding was trying to address, that was a tension we needed to confront.”
Caroline Mason
Translating Mission into Investment Principles
The Foundation has long supported work aimed at strengthening the natural world, advancing social justice, and helping communities thrive. But several years ago, it began asking whether its endowment could better reflect the change it was trying to create in the world. Like many mission-driven institutions, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation had historically viewed grant-making and investing as separate activities: one created impact; the other generated the returns that made that impact possible. Over time, the Foundation saw value in narrowing that divide.
Esmée Fairbairn Foundation is one of the UK’s leading independent funders, with an endowment of approximately £1.3 billion and annual grant-making of about £50 million as of November 2025.
Discussions with trustees helped surface views on long-term risk, the purpose of the endowment, and the Foundation’s role as a capital owner.
Those conversations translated broad values into a more concrete set of investment principles. They also created a stronger basis for decision-making, enabling the Foundation to move from general intent to clearer action.
A key step in the Foundation’s journey to aligning its investments more closely with its mission was clarifying its investment beliefs.
Rather than treating sustainability as a separate overlay, the Foundation increasingly began to consider climate, biodiversity, and wider systemic risks as part of prudent long-term investing, as well as linking the strategy more closely to its mission.
For a long-term institution, we believe that perspective matters. The Foundation’s time horizon allows it to look beyond near-term noise and consider how environmental and social forces may shape long-duration outcomes across the portfolio.
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“It became apparent that the endowment and the Foundation’s mission could not operate on separate tracks. That led us to work more closely with Cambridge Associates and to engage trustees in a deeper conversation about our beliefs, principles, and long-term investment approach.”
Caroline Mason
A Journey of Partnership and Progress
With those principles in place, the focus turned to implementation. The objective was not perfection, but practical steps that could improve alignment while preserving the discipline of a diversified endowment.
That meant focusing on actions that were measurable and meaningful, while recognizing that not every opportunity would fit neatly into a standard framework. In some cases, the Foundation tested ideas through smaller allocations before deciding whether they warranted a broader role in the portfolio.
This emphasis on progress over perfection has been a defining feature of the work. Rather than trying to apply a universal methodology or waiting for perfect data, the Foundation has moved forward where conviction was high and the case for action was strong. That mindset has helped maintain momentum while leaving room to learn and adapt.
Broadening the Approach
Over time, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation has taken a broader view to mission-aligned investing.
Strategies that worked for the foundation
Use a wider toolkit
Grant-making, social investment, and endowment investing each serve different purposes, but can be more powerful when viewed together as part of a wider toolkit. This broader perspective has helped the organization identify areas where capital can support nature, communities, and a fairer future, while remaining grounded in risk-adjusted decision-making.
Begin by testing
Identify upgrade opportunities
Collaboration wins
Use a wider toolkit
Begin by testing
Identify upgrade opportunities
The next phase is to view every component of the portfolio in terms of the extent it contributes—or detracts from—the mission and identify upgrade opportunities.
Collaboration wins
Use a wider toolkit
Begin by testing
Identify upgrade opportunities
Collaboration wins
The Foundation has also embraced collaboration as part of its approach, including working closely with partners and sharing ideas with other institutions to identify practical opportunities. For mission-driven allocators, collaboration can strengthen diligence, expand the opportunity set, and accelerate learning.
Case Study
Use a wider toolkit
Begin by testing
The Foundation has also used smaller, targeted allocations to test strategies that have strong mission relevance but might otherwise appear too novel or too narrow an opportunity set for core portfolio approach. These efforts generated encouraging results, and some have been scaled up to the main portfolio, reinforcing confidence that mission-aware investing and strong performance don’t need to be in conflict.
Identify upgrade opportunities
Collaboration wins
From Principles to Practice
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Results to Date
Esmée Fairbairn Foundation’s work is ongoing, but several outcomes are already clear.
Lessons from Esmée Fairbairn Foundation’s Journey
Start with beliefs
A defined set of investment beliefs can create a stronger foundation for decision-making. For Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, articulating those beliefs helped translate broad mission-driven aspirations into practical investment principles and gave trustees a clearer framework for action.
“You don’t have to have a completely different portfolio to have climate impact. You start with what you have and identify what are the most important positions you can take.”
Read more client stories
Defining Core Beliefs
Long-Horizon Thinking
Chief Executive Officer, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation
Simon Hallett
Head of Climate Strategy,
Cambridge Associates
Investment discussions are now more closely connected to the Foundation’s charitable purpose, helping bridge what were once seen as separate conversations around grant-making and portfolio management.
At the same time, the Foundation has strengthened the governance needed to support action by articulating clear beliefs and translating them into investment principles.
Early implementation efforts have also reinforced confidence in the approach. Pilot allocations and thematic exploration suggest that investments with strong mission relevance can also fit within a disciplined portfolio.
More broadly, the Foundation’s experience has helped advance the conversation about the role of endowed capital.
Its experience suggests that for long-term institutions, mission alignment is not only about exclusions or public commitments; it can also be about building an investment strategy intended to support real-world change while better reflecting how long-term value is created and preserved.
Early implementation efforts have also reinforced confidence in the approach. Pilot allocations and thematic exploration suggest that investments with strong mission relevance can also fit within a disciplined portfolio.
More broadly, the Foundation’s experience has helped advance the conversation about the role of endowed capital.
Its experience suggests that for long-term institutions, mission alignment is not only about exclusions or public commitments; it can also be about building an investment strategy intended to support real-world change while better reflecting how long-term value is created and preserved.
Investment discussions are now more closely connected to the Foundation’s charitable purpose, helping bridge what were once seen as separate conversations around grant-making and portfolio management.
At the same time, the Foundation has strengthened the governance needed to support action by articulating clear beliefs and translating them into investment principles.
Its experience suggests that for long-term institutions, mission alignment is not only about exclusions or public commitments; it can also be about building an investment strategy intended to support real-world change while better reflecting how long-term value is created and preserved.
Investment discussions are now more closely connected to the Foundation’s charitable purpose, helping bridge what were once seen as separate conversations around grant-making and portfolio management.
At the same time, the Foundation has strengthened the governance needed to support action by articulating clear beliefs and translating them into investment principles.
Early implementation efforts have also reinforced confidence in the approach. Pilot allocations and thematic exploration suggest that investments with strong mission relevance can also fit within a disciplined portfolio.
More broadly, the Foundation’s experience has helped advance the conversation about the role of endowed capital.
Take the long view
Long-term investors may be well positioned to consider how environmental, social, and systemic forces could shape outcomes over time. The Foundation’s experience shows how a longer horizon can support a more integrated view of risk, opportunity, and mission.
Progress matters more than perfection
Mission alignment does not need to happen all at once. By focusing on practical, measurable steps, institutions may begin building momentum, test ideas in real time, and refine their approach as their confidence and experience grow.
Use the full investment toolkit
Grant-making, social investment, and endowment investing each play different roles, but they may be more powerful when viewed together. A broader capital toolkit can help institutions think more creatively about how resources support both mission and long-term resilience.
Collaboration accelerates
Shared learning may accelerate progress. By engaging with peers and building relationships across the investment ecosystem, institutions may be better positioned to identify practical solutions, strengthen diligence, and expand the range of opportunities they can consider.
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Chief Executive Officer,
Esmée Fairbairn Foundation