A great piece on locally-focused impact investing in the New York Times, featuring our friends at The Russell Family Foundation, who have pioneered place-based impact investing here in the Northwest.

The Russell family is taking a similar path, giving to the Puget Sound area around Tacoma, Wash. In 2000, the family sold the Frank Russell Company, an investment management company and creator of market indexes of the same name, and set up the Russell Family Foundation.

It decided to focus its giving on two areas: environmental sustainability and the waters of Puget Sound, and grass-roots leadership in Pierce County, where the family business was located.

“As with many families, place matters to them,” said Richard Woo, chief executive of the Russell Family Foundation. “It’s where this business is from. The kinds of impact they can enact — they can see and touch it.”