More Big Foundations Are Investing in For-Profits - Philanthropy Today - The Chronicle of Philanthropy- Connecting the nonprofit world with news, jobs, and ideas

More Big Foundations Are Investing in For-Profits - Philanthropy Today - The Chronicle of Philanthropy- Connecting the nonprofit world with news, jobs, and ideas: More Big Foundations Are Investing in For-Profits

November 29, 2011, 9:54 am

Major foundations are increasingly relying on program-related investing to achieve their goals, putting money into for-profit firms whose work meshes with the donors’ causes, according to The New York Times.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has increased its pool for such investments, known as PRI’s, from $400-million to $1-billion since 2009, and earlier this year it bought a $10-million stake in Liquidia Technologies, a commercial firm working on vaccine delivery. The Omidyar Network, the David & Lucile Packard Foundation, and other funding entities have also stepped up PRI’s.