Non-profit Organisations and Socially Responsible Investments: The Case of Italian Foundations

In times of turmoil and of meagre resources, both s ocially responsible investments (SRI) and non-profi t organisations (NPOs) must strive hard to find new opportu nities to make their activities more and more effec tive. The possibility of using criteria other than the mo re traditional risk-return parameters has been on t he agenda of various different fiduciaries. For NPOs, in particu lar, there seems to be a wide gap between the manag ing and the granting of funds. This paper aims to investigate if, and to what exte nt, it is possible for NPOs, and for foundations in particular, to break down the barriers between mission attainment and investment policies. To do that a twofold inter pretation of the foundations’ fiduciary duty is proposed: the mission or institutional duty and the economic dut y.