Every financial decision leaves a footprint.

Some create opportunity. Some drive progress. Others fade without much consequence. For today’s most sophisticated investors, capital is more than a number on a statement, it’s a lever for building the world they want to see. They expect performance, but they also want precision, clarity, and the ability to see the tangible difference their wealth is making.

A Peak Inside True Impact

Bespoke was fortunate to partner with a values-driven investor who understood her position as a steward of significant capital and the responsibility that comes with it. She knew her resources gave her a rare ability to move the needle on issues she cared about, particularly empowering women and underrepresented communities. But her options, until then, had been uninspired: generic “impact” funds with glossy ESG labels but little substance.

She wasn’t looking for tokenism. She wanted her portfolio to be as intentional and effective as her philanthropic work – a living extension of her values, measurable in both returns and outcomes.

The Challenge: Moving Beyond Surface-Level ESG

When we reviewed her portfolio, it was a standard investment portfolio with just 4% allocated to ESG-labelled ETFs. On paper, it seemed “impact-focused,” but it didn’t reflect the unique mission she had in mind. This isn’t unusual. Many well-intentioned investors are matched with broad, standardized solutions simply because the tools are familiar and easy to implement.

The real gap was clarity. Her vision for creating change hadn’t been fully explored, so her portfolio wasn’t designed to match it. Most investors (even sophisticated ones) aren’t given the full picture of what’s possible and may not know what questions to ask or what’s available to them. At Bespoke, we make it our work to go deeper, uncover overlooked opportunities, and create strategies that are as intentional and distinctive as the people behind them.

Step 1: Understanding the Client

Impact investing is not a template we pull off the shelf; it’s as individual as the person behind the portfolio.

Our first step was to really understand her, not just her net worth, but her story, her ambitions, and the role she wanted her capital to play in the world. We explored the season of life she was in, the level of liquidity she wanted to preserve, her appetite for risk, how public or private she wanted her decisions to be, and how hands-on she hoped to be in the process.

This wasn’t a “fill out a questionnaire and we’ll get back to you” exercise. It was an ongoing, in-depth dialogue that revealed not just numbers, but priorities and boundaries. This created the foundation for building a strategy that would serve both her financial future and her mission.

Step 2: Designing a Comprehensive, Impact-Centered Wealth Strategy

We didn’t just slot her into “impact” funds with a green label. We mapped her entire wealth ecosystem: public equities, private markets, and philanthropic vehicles like a Donor-Advised Fund (DAF) and asked one question at every turn: Is this asset working as hard as it could toward your mission?

From there, we built a portfolio where every allocation had a purpose:

• Venture Capital: Direct allocations to funds owned and managed by women and minority founders, backing companies that tackle real community challenges – from women’s health to educational access across the country.
• Municipal Bonds: Targeted investments in healthcare and educational infrastructure in underserved communities.
• Private Credit: A fund providing essential growth capital to female-led startups at the grassroots level.
• DAF Strategy: A bespoke public markets approach designed for both impact and returns, providing tax advantages and strategic flexibility for giving.

We also extended her values into the public markets, not with vague “sustainability” screens, but with precision, identifying companies driving ecological balance, human empowerment, and ethical innovation. This gave her portfolio both the liquidity and global reach she needed, without diluting the mission.

The Results: Alignment in Action

The transformation was significant. Today, 95% of her wealth is aligned with strategies that have a clear, measurable connection to her mission of empowering women and underserved communities. Her investments and philanthropy now operate in sync – amplifying each other’s impact, creating change today while laying the foundation for lasting systemic shifts.

Lessons for Other Investors

If you have the capacity to shape the world with your capital, you shouldn’t be offered Just Your Average investment strategy. True impact requires moving beyond labels and into the realm of bespoke strategy – one that honors your liquidity needs, financial ambitions, and vision for the future.

It takes a partner willing to look under every stone, to find the overlooked opportunities, and to hold both the complexity of your wealth and the nuance of your purpose in the same hand. At Bespoke, that’s what we do: craft portfolios that tell a story, reflect your values, and leave a legacy far beyond financial returns.

Note: this case study is based on the solution mix currently managed by Bespoke but is not an exact representation of a current client engagement, in order to provide our client with the level of privacy they expect.