Photo of field harmed due to the climate crisis

The Challenge

Our social and climate challenges are at a crisis point, yet trillions of philanthropic dollars sits on the sidelines.

Despite our ever-worsening social and climate challenges, trillions of philanthropic dollars remain unused, even though they could bring transformational change to so many.  

The world’s more than 2500 billionaires have almost $13T in combined wealth. 236 of these billionaires have signed the Giving Pledge, which commits them to give away approximately $1T. The remaining $12T represents the largest pool of untapped philanthropic capital in the world.

To address this bottleneck, Merton Capital Partners develops projects with private companies, in consultation with expert, local nonprofits, that have the ability to deploy significant philanthropic capital — on the order of hundreds of millions of dollars — in order to deliver sustainable, measurable, and scalable social impact.  

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Our Approach

 

At Merton Capital Partners, our mission is to offer tailored direct philanthropic investment vehicles to high-impact philanthropists to help deliver social and environmental solutions at scale.

Identify Systemic Issues in Communities & Scalable Solutions: Merton works in partnership with community leaders and subject matter experts to surface systemic infrastructure challenges and proven solutions that lack funding.

Tap Into Private Sector Partners & Expert Nonprofits to Design a Project: Merton oversees the design and development of social impact projects and manages all project stakeholders.

Connect Donors & Philanthropists to Project: Merton leads the launch of the project’s fund, oversees all fund vehicles and contributions, and manages philanthropic partners and project communications.

Implement the Project, Report on Progress, & Ensure Impact is Achieved: Merton manages the project and all implementation efforts and oversees all private sector and nonprofit partners along with impact evaluators, external consultants, and all philanthropic champions.

Manage Returns for Reinvestment & Ongoing Impact: Merton manages the return on impact and investment for philanthropists and provides opportunities for the philanthropic capital to be reinvested to drive further impact.

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Merton Capital Partners invests significant philanthropic capital — on the order of hundreds of million of dollars — with verified corporations into private sector projects to deliver sustainable, measurable, and scalable social impact across key impact domains such as:

 
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Our Services

 

Tailored issue-focused investments designed to scale solutions, bolster infrastructure, and deliver outcomes for communities and philanthropists. 

Proven solutions to social issues that provide tangible impact.

Cross-sector experience to break through entrenched philanthropic investment bottlenecks.

Returns in the form of capital repaid to donors. These returns can be reinvested for further impact in evergreen structures. 

Sustainable nonprofit partnerships that provide organizations with continued revenue as impact is scaled.

Measurable outcomes that allow investors to track the trajectory and impact of their investment.

Construction worker welding

Our Model

Merton Capital Partners meets with individuals, families, or foundations to understand their motivations for large-scale giving, and their interest in specific issue areas. Then Merton designs a bespoke strategy to leverage charitable capital, and forms a Social Impact Project Trust. 

The trust owns the underlying project assets, often alongside a leading private sector partner. Local expert nonprofits will provide guidance in tackling the challenge.  Independent evaluators and consultants ensure the credible tracking of impact and progress towards a local solution. This yields a Social Impact Project that will deliver scalable solutions to community challenges. The returns on the Social Impact Project over time are reinvested into the system to continue driving impact and good for communities.

Case Studies & Partners

 

Merton Capital Partners works in partnership with best-in-class nonprofits, social impact organizations, and private sector leaders to develop evidence-informed projects in local communities. Meet a few of our past partners below:

 
 

Atlanta-based Purpose Built Communities - $100M plan to fully fund the development of 28 neighborhoods through place-based initiatives.

Community Partners of South Florida - $85M plan to permanently house the 500 most “frequent users” of homeless services, including emergency rooms and jails in Palm Beach Co., FL, resulting in $7M in annual cost savings to Florida.

Salvation Army - $175M early learning plan to solve the challenge that almost half of all children in Palm Beach Co., FL, cannot read at a third-grade reading level.

ImpactAssets - $2B in assets that allows philanthropy to be invested in private companies through an innovative Donor Advised Fund (DAF).