The Heron Foundation was created in 1992 to help people and communities help themselves out of poverty. Today, the foundation is focused on building a better economy in the United States, one in which reliable employment and income are available to every willing worker or household. The New York-based foundation aims to deploy the full balance of its endowment towards that mission, and invests all of its assets through a single capital deployment office, removing the traditional foundation’s operating distinction between investments and grant-making.

Their enterprise-first, tax-status agnostic approach allows the foundation to seek investment opportunities in both nonprofit and for-profit enterprises that increase and maintain reliable employment, advance innovations that help low income communities and workers be economically resilient, and contribute to society in a way that leaves everyone better off. The foundation’s capital is most commonly used to support an enterprise’s growth, or to support a change of business model that improves, preserves, or sustains an enterprise to increase employment and livelihood for people in the community.