Conscious Portfolio Construction: Aligning Capital With Mission
By: TJ Abood
At some point in our lives, we all face a version of the same question: Do I choose the path that excites me, or the path that feels safer?
For many of us, it came when we picked a college major or our first job. For others, it shows up in our careers and investments: Do we follow passion, or do we prioritize pragmatism?
This tension—between what we believe in and what seems “rational”—is the same one that sits at the heart of endowment investing.
The Prevailing Model
For most endowments, the approach is straightforward. The IRS requires 5% of investable assets be distributed charitably each year. To meet that obligation and ensure long-term growth, the prevailing strategy is to maximize returns with the most efficient, risk-adjusted portfolio possible.
It’s a model that works financially. But here’s the challenge: it does so by ignoring the mission of the very institution the endowment was created to support. The 5% is the “mission-driven” spend. The 95%? Purely financial.
Our Starting Point
At Access Ventures, we see things differently.
We believe that 100% of our resources are in service of our mission—not just the 5% we’re required to spend each year. Every investment has an impact, whether positive or negative. The real work is to be proactive and intentional about what kind of impact we want to have.
Returns and Impact: Not a Trade-Off
The common critique is that this approach comes at the expense of returns. We don’t believe that’s true.
Research consistently shows that companies that treat people with dignity and build cultures of trust outperform. One Harvard study found that culture-first companies generated nearly 3x higher stock returns over a decade compared to peers. Costco, for example, has returned more than 12,000% over the last 25 years, compared to Walmart’s ~2,000%. Jim Sinegal, Costco’s founder, was famous for saying: “Paying employees well is not charity—it’s good business.”
For us, the evidence is clear: values alignment is not a drag on returns—it’s a driver of them.
Building a Conscious Portfolio
So what does it mean to consciously construct a portfolio? Think of a house:
The foundation is our values.
The structure is the allocation across asset classes.
The rooms are the individual holdings.
When we evaluate investments, we consider:
Mission Fit – Does this align with what we actually care about?
Financial Performance – Will it deliver reliable, long-term returns?
Liquidity – Can we access capital if needed?
Risk Profile – Does it balance or concentrate exposures?
Network Value – Does it connect us to people, ideas, or capital that strengthen our work?
Learning Opportunity – Will it stretch and sharpen our thinking?
This framework ensures every decision is about more than financial gain—it’s about building a portfolio that reflects who we are.
In Practice
Two examples from our work at Access Ventures bring this to life:
Ethic – Early on, we needed passive exposure to public markets that reflected our values. Existing options were opaque and unsatisfying. Around that time, we met the team at Ethic, who were building exactly what we needed. We became one of their first investors, their first customer, and later helped expand their distribution. Today, Ethic manages over $7B, giving others the ability to align investments with their values.
Digital Assets – Our early work focused on financial inclusion and technology for social good. Over time, we came to see blockchain as the purest form of inclusion technology—open, participatory, and permissionless. It also offered compelling return potential as a frontier asset class. For us, this was mission alignment and financial performance working together.
Closing Thought
Conscious portfolio construction isn’t about accepting less. It’s about refusing the false trade-off between financial performance and impact.
That’s how we invest at Access Ventures. And it’s how we believe capital—in all its forms—can be a force for human flourishing.