In This Newsletter:
ICAP in Action
ICAP Executive Council Updates
Team Notes: News and Trends
ICAP in Action
ICAP Team and Milken Institute Research Launch Report on Women-Led Fund Managers
Most research on why female-led businesses receive less funding focuses on investor bias. But what if we stepped back and examined the demographics of the investors themselves? In collaboration with Milken Institute Research and Recast Capital, the ICAP team produced The Missing Billions: Analyzing the Impact of Women-Led Financial Managers. This report explores the barriers faced by female-led emerging venture funds and their broader impact on the financial landscape, while also outlining tangible next steps to unlock more capital for these fund managers.
100 Women in Finance (100WF) highlighted this report in a webinar as part of their FundWomen initiative. Report authors Melanie Schwartz, Troy Duffie, and Maggie Switek Priya Kaftan, head of investor relations and product strategy at Heard Capital and a 100WF member, to discuss the report’s key findings and strategic recommendations.
The HBCU Strategic Initiative and Fellowship Program Wins Community Nonprofit of the Year
The Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) Strategic Initiative and Fellowship program was honored to win the 2025 PR Daily Community-Nonprofit Partnership Award of the Year. The Nonprofit Communications Awards recognize the most effective and inspiring work in nonprofit communications.
This year’s awards honored outstanding achievements across categories, including fundraising campaigns, digital storytelling, crisis response, advocacy initiatives, events, video, and more. The Institute is honored to be part of a cohort of winners representing leading communicators shaping the future of nonprofit outreach and engagement.
The 2025 HBCU Fellows Cohort Graduates Welcome Newest Cohort of 20 Fellows
For the first time in the program’s history, the ICAP team hosted two HBCU cohorts in a joint celebration at the Institute’s newly opened Milken Center for Advancing the American Dream.
The 2024–2025 cohort was honored in a graduation ceremony marking the completion of their first year as Milken Institute HBCU Fellows. These fellows successfully completed the educational course, a competitive summer internship, and attended at least one of several conferences offered throughout the year. They also connected with program supporters through a career pathways conversation at the World Bank Group with leadership and HBCU alumni, and a hosted breakfast with the Investment Company Institute to learn more about their work and future internship opportunities.
The ICAP team also proudly welcomed the 2025–2026 HBCU Fellows cohort into the Institute network. This fourth cohort of fellows represents 17 Institutions from across the country, including Spelman College, Fisk University, and the nation’s oldest HBCU, Cheyney University.
The new fellows had the opportunity to meet their cohort peers, the ICAP team, and supporters from the Institute network during the graduation reception for their predecessors. With the support of the ICAP team, they will continue the educational course with ViableEdu and move on to securing summer internships. Following the week’s events, one fellow was featured in campus news as the first Alabama A&M University student to become a Milken Institute HBCU Fellow.
A Student's Guide to Alternative Investments Podcast Gets a New Season
The Milken Institute HBCU Fellows program produced a second season of A Student's Guide to Alternative Investments podcast, in partnership with the Alternative and Direct Investment Securities Association (ADISA).
This season, fellows attended the ADISA Annual Conference and interviewed association members on topics including artificial intelligence and the future of alternatives, commercial real estate, expanding access in the industry, and evaluating viable investment opportunities. Season two launches later this year. In the meantime, listen to all episodes of season one.
ICAP Executive Council Updates
The Executive Council Meets to Strategize for the New Year
In September 2025, the Milken Institute’s Inclusive Capitalism Executive Council convened asset owners, managers, and financial leaders to examine how inclusion efforts in the asset management sector can adapt amid growing federal scrutiny.
The strategy discussion explored the political dynamics behind the administration’s rollback of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies, the legal risks emerging from enforcement initiatives, and strategies to safeguard mission-driven inclusion while maintaining fiduciary responsibility. Participants shared practical insights on which arguments about competitiveness, innovation, and talent equity resonate most with policymakers and offered guidance on monitoring risk signals and navigating compliance challenges.
Council members left with actionable strategies to continue broadening opportunity, fostering durable workforce access, and maintaining inclusive investment practices aligned with the principles of inclusive capitalism.
The Executive Council Gains Two Powerhouses in Finance
The ICAP team is pleased to welcome two new experts to the Executive Council: Senior Director of Investments of Pivotal Ventures Erin Harkless Moore and Deputy Chief Investment Officer for the Employees’ Retirement Fund (ERF) of the City of Dallas Natalie Jenkins Sorrel.
With nearly 20 years of investment experience building and managing customized portfolios for endowed institutions and family offices, Moore oversees a diverse portfolio of investments that drive breakthrough innovations and advance women’s power and influence. As senior director of investments at Pivotal Ventures, she also serves on the firm’s Executive Leadership Team, where she is responsible for setting organization-wide priorities and approving cross-functional bodies of work.
Sorrell is the deputy chief investment officer for the $4 billion ERF of the City of Dallas. She is responsible for the design and implementation of the fund’s overall investment strategy and policy. Since joining the Dallas ERF in 2006, she has spearheaded efforts to fulfill new private equity, private real estate, global equity, and master limited partnership allocations totaling more than $600 million.
Team Notes: News and Trends
The Administration Dissolves CDFIs
Community finance is at a crossroads. In October, the administration moved to dismiss all staff at Treasury’s CDFI Fund, prompting swift bipartisan pushback and a court order temporarily pausing the action.
Created in 1994 with bipartisan support, CDFIs have been a quiet engine of inclusive capitalism: Each federal dollar typically mobilizes about eight more from the private sector to finance small businesses, affordable housing, and community facilities in places conventional finance underserves—across red and blue districts, urban corridors, and rural main streets alike.
The bipartisan Senate Community Development Finance Caucus, co-chaired by Senators Mike Crapo and Mark Warner, has urged reversing the layoffs and releasing appropriated funds, emphasizing the Fund’s cost-effective role in broad-based prosperity.
Put simply, CDFIs translate public risk-sharing into market discipline that expands opportunity where capital is scarce—an operational definition of inclusive capitalism with accountability at its core.
The Pathways to Capital team engaged the Senate Community Development Finance Caucus and urged state leaders to create supportive ecosystems and dedicated funding to sustain local CDFIs in a Milken Institute Insights piece.
CDFIs are valued partners for programs across the Pathways to Capital portfolio. The elimination of federal support for CDFIs poses an extensional threat and calls into question the industry’s long-term sustainability.
Policy Highlight: EO14173
As of mid-October 2025, Executive Order 14173, “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity,” remains enforceable despite ongoing litigation and mounting compliance pressure across sectors.
After appellate courts reinstated core provisions in March, agencies resumed requiring contractors and grantees to certify that they are not operating “illegal DEI programs,” with noncompliance treated as a material breach under the False Claims Act.
The Department of Justice and Department of Labor have since coordinated a whole-of- government enforcement push, focusing on major contractors, universities, and nonprofits receiving federal funding. Cities, including Baltimore and Seattle, have filed lawsuits arguing that the order’s vague language and funding threats violate constitutional spending powers and the Tenth Amendment.
In this environment, leaders in finance, philanthropy, and higher education are rethinking what inclusion looks like under constraint. For many, the challenge is no longer whether to pursue inclusion, but how to sustain it within a compliance-first structure—balancing legal prudence with the long-term economic logic that inclusion fuels growth, talent, and stability.
Report Highlight: NAIC
The National Association of Investment Companies (NAIC), a network of diverse- and women- owned alternative investment firms, released its biennial performance study, Affirming the Returns 2025: Further Evidence of Diverse-Owned Private Equity Firm Outperformance.
The report confirms that diverse-owned private equity firms outperformed the industry benchmark by a 700-basis-point spread. The NAIC Private Equity Index generated an internal rate of return of 16.0 percent from 1998 through Sept 2023, significantly outperforming the Burgiss median return of 9.0 percent. Read the full report.