57 White: Our impact investments are just beginning to be aligned with the foundation’s financial inclusion strategy. Throughout our 30-year history in impact investing we have focused on traditional affordable housing deals, community development financial institutions (CDFIs), and nonprofit organizations in a range of areas, whether it’s health or community facilities. We are slowly building up the capability in our impact investment area to look at investments that align with our financial inclusion strategy, but also are global—outside the U.S., where the bulk of our investment experience has been. So we have invested in microinsurance activities, and some activities thatexpandtheproductofferingsorotherwisestrengthen MFIs in emerging markets. We’re an experienced impact investor domestically but new to global investments and financial inclusion so our expansion into the financial inclusion area will reflect that. We have a preference for making investments in diversified funds or co-investing, rather than making a direct investment in a financial inclusion startup or structuring a deal from scratch. Our global impact investments will essentially have the samefootprintthatthefoundationhasinitsgrant-making, and also the same footprint MetLife has as a business organization. Although with that said, from time to time we’ll engage in activities outside our geographic footprint if it’s an investment that can be scaled or replicated in other markets. Militzer: Broadly speaking, how has your experience with impact investing been so far, and do you see it as a growing focus of your work—why/why not? White: We have 30 years of experience with impact investing here in the States, mostly in affordable housing and CDFIs, as I mentioned, and our experience has been very positive. In fact, we’re currently going through a review of that 30-year history of about $700 million in impact investing, to document what we’ve accomplished and learned. But the default rates have been extremely, extremely low. With that history and our capabilities in that area, and our overall CSR strategy, we definitely see it as an area of growth. Militzer: Talk a bit about your regional priorities – where do you do the bulk of your grant-making, and how do you determine where to focus?  White: Again, it’s where MetLife has a business presence, with a bit of an over-emphasis on developing markets. About half of our work is currently being done here in the U.S., followed by Asia, LatAm and EMEA, in that order. We don’t have a strict formula, but it certainly aligns with the relative earnings contributions of each region. Militzer: That brings up another question: Based on the regionsyou’vedescribed,andlookingatthemapinyour most recent annual report, it seems like sub-Saharan Africa isn’t a particularly large focus for the foundation. Do you see that changing, as the continent continues to emerge as a hotbed of financial innovation? White: Yes, we are not active in Africa except in Egypt where we have a business presence. If MetLife expands into Africa, the foundation would of course look at making more grants there. But again, we follow our markets—and we do that for a number of reasons. First and foremost it’s where we have people, since we want our MetLife employees to be engaged with our work. With that said, wefundmanyglobalorganizationswhoseworkisrelevant to the continent and some of our impact investments in global funds have activities in Africa. Militzer: How does the MetLife Foundation measure the impact of its grants and investments? What has this assessment taught you, in terms of what works, and what doesn’t? White: I’ll split the grants and investments: On the grant side, we’re just a couple of years into our financial inclusion work, and it takes more time to get the projects up and running, to recognize what the impact is, and to be able to understand it. So we’re early into that journey. But we do have a measurement and assessment system in place, we are collecting data from our major grantees in financial inclusion, and we are committed to sharing that when we can get it all together and decipher it. I think this is a challenge for all grant-makers, to not just measure outputs, but outcomes and behavior change. But we’re committed to that, and working on it, and we’ll know more once some of our programs get a little more mature. On the investment side, it’s a little more straightforward. Up front, if we’re making an investment in an organization that has a commitment to products or services that help low-income people advance, or that protect them, we make that investment and monitor it primarily in terms