Trillium and Calvert Foundation Announce Donor Advised Partnership

October, 2008: Bethesda, MD and Boston, MA – Trillium Asset Management Corporation (Trillium) and Calvert Foundation are pleased to announce the launch of a partnership based upon the Calvert Giving Fund platform. Trillium will present its customized version of Calvert Giving Fund’s Donor Advised Program as a 100% socially responsibly invested donor advised fund. This will enable philanthropists and Trillium clients to pursue positive social benefits through two means. First, the socially responsible investment of their philanthropic funds will generate social and environmental benefits, and second, the eventual granting of these funds to nonprofits will further increase these benefits.
Calvert Foundation offers a donor advised fund that allows tax-deductible, donated capital to be invested with both financial and social returns in support of issues such as the environment, poverty alleviation through microfinance and small business lending, affordable housing, human rights or diversity issues. Trillium’s investment strategy concentrates on ecology, equity and economy. With this overlap of core mission and competencies, a partnership between Trillium and Calvert Foundation offers donors the opportunity to leverage both their charitable giving and their investing to generate real change in the world through a combination of investment and donation. 
“Trillium’s clients are very philanthropically oriented, and with a donor advised fund customized to our particular strengths and needs, it presents us with a great opportunity to add value to, and extend our relationship with clients,” said Trillium’s Marketing Manager, Lisa MacKinnon. “Calvert Foundation brings us capabilities to access a full range of community development, microfinance and other investment strategies that other donor advised funds simply do not integrate in a deep and flexible manner, if at all.”
Tim Freundlich, the director of Calvert Foundation’s donor advised fund program, stated that “This partnership enables Trillium clients to become a new kind of strategic philanthropist, offering a competitive donor advised fund experience coupled with expert, mission-aligned management of capital that leverages 100% of assets for positive impact from day one, even before grants to the end charities are undertaken months or even years later.”
A donor advised fund allows donors to make an up-front donation and receive a tax-deduction in the year they make the donation. Funds are invested and managed to potentially grow, tax-free.  The donor advisor may recommend charitable grants to nonprofits in good standing both domestically and internationally. Through Calvert Foundation’s partnership with Trillium, philanthropists will have the benefit of Trillium’s expert team of investment managers multiplying their philanthropic dollars while at the same time creating a positive impact through investment in their community, the economy and the environment. Donors will also invest in Calvert Foundation’s Community Investment Note, a unique investment product that invests in nonprofits, social enterprises, affordable housing groups, CDFIs and fair trade cooperatives, and can be targeted to specific impact areas in line with donors’ interests.  Download more information on the Trillium-Calvert Giving Fund.
ABOUT TRILLIUM
Trillium Asset Management Corporation (“Trillium”) is a full-service investment management firm dedicated to meeting the long-term financial and social goals of our individual, family and institutional clients.  A pioneer and leader in the social investment industry, Trillium is the oldest and largest independent investment management firm in the U.S. exclusively devoted to socially responsible investing. Since 1982 clients have chosen Trillium because of the  emphasis on personalized service, an investment discipline providing consistent and competitive returns, and a deep commitment to advancing environmental sustainability, social justice and human rights through innovative investment, research, and advocacy.   Visit https://archive.trilliuminvest.com/ for more information.
ABOUT CALVERT FOUNDATION
For over 12 years, Calvert Social Investment Foundation, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization, has worked to make community investment a safe and logical option for all investors seeking to make a positive social impact. To make community investment accessible to a wider audience, Calvert Foundation has removed critical barriers by creating investment products that blend both financial and social returns. With more than $200 million in assets, Calvert Foundation focuses on using investment capital, rather than conventional philanthropy, to create a sustainable, scalable model that enables nonprofit organizations, microfinance institutions and social enterprises to address critical social problems. For more information, see http://www.calvertfoundation.org/.