Getting Started.
Participatory Investing is a nascent field.
This toolkit represents the beginning of learning and experimentation around Participatory Investing. The principles, skills, and strategies outlined in this framework are based on experience, research, and well-known models such as the Community Engagement Spectrum and established investing functions within traditional philanthropic institutions. Models and examples of this work are emerging and research in this area is at a relatively early stage.
In March 2022, Common Future launched the Action Lab: Participatory Investing—a partnership with the World Education Services (WES) Mariam Assefa Fund—with 16 leaders from 8 participating institutions. During this year-long initiative, we learned about and experimented with participatory strategies and principles.
Then we applied our learnings and put them into action by investing through a collaborative fund. Together with the Action Lab: Participatory Investing cohort, and indispensable support from numerous advisors, we’ve built this guide to make this work easier for other institutions.
This framework aggregates our learnings, core principles, and some existing examples to further catalyze the field of Participatory Investing. It is an invitation for funders to think differently about who has power within their institutions and how decisions are made. Participatory Investing is a way of viewing the work. It should be iterative and deeply integrated.
This toolkit is intended to be a starting place, not an endpoint.
Note: The methodology presented in this toolkit does not provide all of the answers for how to integrate Participatory Investing into your institution. Instead, it poses questions and asks you to reflect on the context of your work to develop a strategy that is both edge-pushing and realistic for your unique institution. Participatory Investing is not a linear process—there are many paths toward making progress within this toolkit no matter where your institution is starting.
Would you like to work through this process as a team?
Implementing Participatory Investing in your institution will take effort, time, and resources. While you may be able to implement some changes on your own, we know this work is more effective and lasting if there are multiple people moving it forward. With that lens, we have developed this facilitator guide to support systemic changes within your institution.
“If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together.”
