OMCA’s Long-Term Investment Portfolio Purpose and Priorities

OMCA as a Museum: Vision and Social Impact

OMCA envisions a just and vibrant future where our communities value and honor one another and the world around us. We believe that, as a museum, we can be a part of building a better future for our communities by using our unique museum offerings to tackle the problem of social fragmentation. Social fragmentation is the fallout from inequities within institutions, the state, and civil society, resulting in decreased social cohesion and increased social exclusion. At OMCA, we strive to create the space and context for greater connection, trust, and understanding between people, leading to greater social cohesion in our communities. Social cohesion is essential to the wellbeing of communities and serves as the foundation for working collectively to address problems and inequities. We know that diversity, building connections across differences, and fostering understanding between people of different identities are primary components of social cohesion.

Alignment of Vision/Social Impact and Investment Portfolio

The purpose of OMCA’s long-term investment portfolio is to preserve and grow its investment assets to further OMCA’s mission. OMCA’s long-term investment guidelines seek alignment with the institution’s vision – to envision a just and vibrant future where our communities value and honor one another and the world around us – in a way that allows us to live this vision through mindful investment choices. This alignment is not only the right thing to do but also best serves donors who support our vision and the visitors, volunteers, and staff who carry out our vision.    

We ensure the alignment of our mission and vision with the purpose of our investment portfolio by choosing investments that both (a) support the ecosystems required to increase social cohesion in California and in all global communities and (b) provide a predictable stream of funding to our exhibitions, programs, acquisitions, and operations while seeking to maintain the purchasing power of the portfolio. The long-term investment portfolio aims to balance the preservation of capital with the maximization of long-term total return to satisfy its long-term rate-of-return objectives.

These investment guidelines emphasize general areas that form a foundation that we build on in nurturing social cohesion in our role as a Museum. In consultation with our investment advisor, OMCA will develop asset allocations, manager allocations, risk/return strategies, and timelines that emphasize the following priorities, which we believe to be critical to fostering increased social cohesion in the world around us.

We do not expect our portfolio to reach alignment with our mission and vision in the near term. We recognize that the alignment process will be best done slowly and methodically but with great intention. We acknowledge that this process will be ongoing and iterative as circumstances and issues evolve and change.

Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging

We believe our investment portfolio is one of many places where we can operationalize and put into practice the bridging of perspectives required for social cohesion. We act on this belief by ensuring the inclusion of diverse identities in our investment managers, advisors, and Investment Committee members.

Statement of Intention for Diversity in OMCA’s Investment Portfolio Management

  • By December 2025, the composition of our portfolio fiduciaries, including our investment advisor and Investment Committee, will comprise a membership of more than half of people with identities from historically underrepresented populations. Those identities include but are not limited to race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, and physical ability.
  • By December 2028, we will have allocated more than half of our portfolio assets to investment managers with identities from historically underrepresented populations. Those identities include but are not limited to race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, and physical ability.
  • We will assess and report annually to our OMCA internal and external communities on our progress toward our intentions for the diversity of our investment portfolio via our website, www.museumca.org.

Investment Priorities

As an investor in the global markets, we believe that our mission to inspire more equitable and connected communities must be as relevant to our investment portfolio as it is to our work as a museum. We believe our choices for our long-term invested funds can enhance our commitment to social cohesion in Oakland and the world beyond. We recognize that, as a prerequisite to the creation of social cohesion, the basic needs of people and the planet must be sustainably met.  In turn, social cohesion is a prerequisite to addressing other urgent community issues, locally and globally, such as health, poverty, and climate action.

Statement of Intention for Focus Areas in OMCA’s Investment Portfolio Management

We will emphasize investment strategies that prioritize:

  • Excellent corporate governance
    • The United Nations (UN) tells us that “increased social cohesion results from promoting equal opportunities and reducing disparities and divisions within a society.” Social cohesion can thrive if it is ethically stewarded via good governance, an embrace of diversity, and a reduction of inequities for employees. We prefer investments in companies that share these beliefs and consciously execute them in their operations, as demonstrated by high overall ESG scores.
  • Climate action and renewable and sustainable energy projects
    • Climate change and environmental injustices are some of the most significant current threats to our communities and futures, and have already resulted in dramatic inequities between low- and high-income neighborhoods and countries. A recent U.N. study found that climate change could “push more than 120 million more people into poverty by 2030 and will have the most severe impact in poor countries, regions, and the places poor people live and work.” Environmental injustice has resulted in harmful exposures to toxins, excessive heat, and lack of access to health-promoting neighborhoods. These factors reduce the average lifespans of low-income communities and communities of color compared to more affluent, white communities, and can create barriers to civic engagement. Climate change has further exacerbated historic inequities, as those individuals who have been the most vulnerable are set to suffer most from a changing climate. As a significant focus area, our portfolio will make investments that work toward promoting climate action, regenerative economies, clean renewable energy, climate justice, and the creation of sustainable communities and infrastructure.
  • BIPOC-owned business, especially in the creative economy
    • Investing in vibrant communities of color is essential to preventing displacement, eliminating discriminatory practices, and breaking the cycle of disinvestment and exclusion from loans and lines of credit. Such investments would create new opportunities for the Museum to support businesses deeply rooted in the creative community, ultimately contributing to the betterment of communities as a whole.
  • Affordable housing
    • The trend of displacement in the Bay Area for low-income communities, particularly communities of color, also exacerbates social fragmentation and challenges social cohesion. The Black population in San Francisco has been decreasing in every census since 1970. In that year, Black residents represented 13.4% of the city’s population, but as of 2021, Black residents only make up 5.7%. Similarly, the percentage of Black residents in Oakland has decreased from 47% in 1980 to approximately 20% today. A lack of affordable housing has directly resulted in a surge in homelessness. A 2018 U.N. report highlighted the harsh living conditions faced by the unhoused residents of Oakland, calling conditions “cruel and inhuman.” It is vital to ensure that basic needs are met so that individuals can actively participate in civic life and contribute to community-building efforts. For these reasons, we emphasize investments in businesses that create affordable housing or mixed-use developments with a substantial portion of affordable housing.

We will de-emphasize or eliminate investment strategies that promote:

  • Firearms, prison industrial complex, and incarceration
    • Public health and public safety are two of the areas where divergent racial outcomes demonstrate extreme inequity in Oakland. In and beyond Oakland, people of color are more likely to experience adverse outcomes than white people when interacting with firearms and the criminal justice system. We look to move away from investments that are in the business of sustaining incarceration, using prison labor without equitable compensation for work performed, firearms, the militarization of communities, and law enforcement.
  • Exploration, production, and extraction of fossil fuels
    • Fossil fuels are a major contributor to climate change and pollution, disproportionately impacting low-income communities and communities of color.  UN head António Guterres recently stated that the fossil fuel industry is “at the heart of the climate crisis” and called fossil fuels “incompatible with human survival.” In the long term, we will eliminate investments in companies that are involved with the production, extraction, and exploration of fossil fuels, which directly contribute to adverse climate change, negative health outcomes, and inequities among communities.

We will assess and report annually to our OMCA internal and external communities on our progress toward our intentions for the impact of our investment portfolio.