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Our Mission
MDI Overview
- Education & Learning ($8.50M)
- Family Economic Security ($47.50M)
- Food, health and well being ($5.50M)
Mission-driven investing (MDI) is an investment program. This is not a grantmaking program. If you are seeking a grant, please visit the Grantseeking section of WKKF.org. The W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s MDI effort consists of a U.S. program, Africa program, and an emerging program for Latin America and the Caribbean.
Mission-Driven Investing
Just as the W.K. Kellogg Foundation awards grants to advance our mission of improving the lives of vulnerable children, our mission-driven investing effort uses investments to reinforce that same goal. Our mission-driven investing program is, as its name suggests, an investment program designed to help maximize our efforts to realize our mission. The approach goes beyond traditional grantmaking efforts to invest endowment dollars in enterprises that both realize market rates of return and improve the lives of vulnerable children.
In 2007, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation earmarked $100 million in endowment dollars for mission investments – $25 million for investments in the southern Africa region and $75 million for investments in the United States. An investment program for Latin America and the Caribbean is currently under development but not yet operational. From the beginning, the emphasis has been on using investment dollars to realize both social and financial returns, thereby leveraging mission impact while preserving capital.
“Ultimately, we want to make a positive difference by improving opportunities for children, families and communities and still meet our financial investment goals,” says Sterling Speirn, president and chief executive officer of the Foundation. "Mission-driven investing is another tool that we can use to leverage our resources. Among other things, it allows us to preserve and grow our financial resources, while realizing greater social change by being able leverage our endowment to help vulnerable children.”
