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April 10, 2000
MMA and Calvert Collaborate on Community Investment
Mennonite Mutual Aid breaks into the community development investing market with the help of
Calvert Foundation, bringing millions of dollars of capital to underserved communities.
SocialFunds.com --
Mutual funds and other institutional investors investigating ways to diversify into community
investing are faced with many tricky legal, political, and fiduciary hurdles. But Calvert
Foundation and Mennonite Mutual Aid (MMA), the parent organization of MMA Praxis Mutual Funds, are
smoothing the road for broader access to community investment through a unique partnership.
 MMA, a church-related organization that
helps church members within the Anabaptist tradition practice biblical stewardship, recently
launched a program it calls MMA Community Development Investments (CDI). With total assets of
approximately $1 billion, between MMA Praxis mutual funds, The Mennonite Foundation and other of
managed assets, MMA stands to make a significant entry into this arena.
"We are involved
and committed to CDI because it accurately reflects who we are and who we want to be as an
investment organization," said Mark Regier, who coordinates MMA's socially responsible investment
activities. "Community development investing helps us live out the charge we have to be responsible
stewards of God's generosity."
MMA's foray into community investing also marks the launch
of a new program at Calvert Foundation called Community Investment Partners, designed to facilitate
community investment efforts by other financial services. Calvert, which already manages a combined
portfolio of more than $25 million, will administer the new MMA Community Development Investments
as the first participant in this program.
Calvert Social Investment Foundation, which
administers the High Social Impact Investments program and its own $14 million community investment
portfolio, has over ten years of experience in community investing. Recognizing that mutual funds
and other financial service companies will not invest significant assets in communities unless
transaction costs are minimized, Calvert's Community Investment Partners program is designed to
ease this administrative burden.
"In addition to developing considerable sectoral
expertise, the Foundation's lending and supervision methods have been honed through years of
practice," said Shari Berenbach, Executive Director of Calvert Foundation. "In more than ten years
we have not lost a single penny of principal. Calvert Foundation is prepared to make that
experience available to others to help grow the whole field of community investment."
MMA
Community Development Investments will place a percentage of MMA's total assets in support of
affordable housing, community development, and microcredit groups that in turn re-lend the money to
individuals or projects in local communities. The program will pull from Calvert Foundation's
nearly 100 non-profit local intermediaries working for positive social impact at the community
level.
MMA invested their first $500,000 on March 31, placed with Mennonite Economic
Development Associates, an international microcredit group, but future plans include both
church-related and other organizations. Their multi-year goal calls for moving more than $30
million into a combination of "near-market-rate" vehicles, such as Community Development Banks and
Credit Union CDs, and "below-market-rate" non-profit loan funds and microcredit programs.
"Calvert Foundation's effort in establishing Community Investment Partners and MMA's role as
'first through the door' begins to move community development investing into an entirely new, more
functional arena," said Regier of MMA. "Groups like MMA--mutual fund companies, insurance groups,
other institutional investors--who want to invest in communities now have an organized, structured
option that will facilitate and simplify their efforts."
The Social Investment Forum,
the nonprofit trade association for the social investment industry in the U.S., is encouraging all
of their member organizations to devote one percent of their assets to community investing. A
number of asset managers are rising to the challenge, but Calvert's Community Investment Partners
will go a long way toward clearing the way for them.
©
SRI World Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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