Domini Impact Investment's Impact Bond Fund aims to increase access to affordable and quality housing, health care, education, jobs, transportation, renewable energy, water and financial services through an investment-grade bond portfolio that directs capital to where it is needed most.

Investing in municipal and green, social and sustainability bond markets, the fund has three key goals: to increase access to capital for those historically underserved by the mainstream financial community; to create public goods for those most in need; and to fill capital gaps left by current financial practice.

The women-led, US-based investment adviser has one major exclusion: US Treasuries, due to Domini’s concerns about investing in the country’s nuclear weapons arsenal. Instead, the fund invests in bonds issued by US government agencies that are aligned with Domini’s goals, such as affordable housing, and have similar risk and return characteristics.

Carole Laible, CEO of Domini, said: “The challenges of this past year – from addressing pandemic and health disparities, to climate change, to the broader reckoning with systemic racism – reiterated how the health of people, the planet, and the economy are all connected. These relationships motivate many of our investment decisions as we continue to harness the power of finance to build a better world.”

One Impact Awards judge commended the fund's "targeted impact with clear use of the characteristics of the asset class to deliver that impact".