Lauder Family Office Multi-Generation Workshop Series

Social Finance partnered with the Laura and Gary Lauder Family Venture Philanthropy Fund to design and facilitate a four-part impact investing workshop series, bringing together multiple generations of the family, family office professionals, and advisors, around a shared exploration of impact-first investing — from foundational concepts through personalized investment theses and real-world deal evaluation.

Goals: The series was designed to achieve three objectives:

• Build on the Lauder family’s knowledge of impact investing — including how it differs from traditional and ESG investing — and develop the vocabulary and frameworks needed to evaluate opportunities rigorously. While Gary and Laura had experience impact investing, this work expanded their knowledge and prepared their children to develop their own portfolios.
• Help each family member clarify their impact priorities, financial goals, and risk tolerance as individual investors.
• Bring the family together across generations to explore shared convictions and to envision what next generation impact investing portfolios could look like in practice.

The Work: The engagement unfolded across four facilitated workshops.

• The first session introduced the landscape of impact investing: covering the spectrum from traditional capital to impact-first investing, the role of catalytic capital, and key investment vehicles and structures.
• The second session walked through how impact-first investors source, evaluate, and manage deals, including frameworks for impact and financial diligence.
• The third session curated real impact investing opportunities tailored to each family member’s interests, offering a tangible view into what their portfolios could look like.
• The fourth session explored the distinction between finance-first and impact-firstinvesting, helping participants calibrate their own approach along that spectrum.

The Results: The workshop series equipped the Lauder family to expand their impact investing work and to establish next generation portfolios.

• Each family member emerged with a clearer sense of their individual impact priorities, risk appetite, and investment philosophy, while aligning around a shared language and understanding of impact investing as a family.
• Participants left the series with the tools and frameworks to evaluate real opportunities, and family members went on to make impact investments in the months that followed: laying the foundation for a coordinated, values-aligned approach to deploying capital.