Growing impact through investing: The Wyatt Trust’s Perspectives on Investing

More than a decade ago, The Wyatt Trust asked: what more could it do with the funds it stewards? Perspectives on Investing, released in April 2026, offers an honest account of how that question has shaped its practice. Its release followed The Wyatt Trust being named Impact Asset Owner of the Year at the Australian Impact Investing Awards. 

At the recent Foundations Group for Impact Investing (FGII) Market Information Day, Wyatt Investment Specialist Gavin Reid brought the report’s most candid lessons to life. The report is not a blueprint or technical guide. Instead, Wyatt shows that its move into impact investing was incremental, relational and at times uncomfortable.  

Incremental progress: Catalytic Local Investment Fund (CLIF) 

Wyatt’s Catalytic Local Investment Fund (CLIF), as featured in the report, is an unapologetically hyper-local, million-dollar, structure-agnostic loan vehicle for South Australian businesses creating positive outcomes for people and planet. CLIF sits at the intersection of three principles: localisation, a wellbeing economy lens and catalytic capital. 

Stacey Thomas, Wyatt’s CEO, came to the Board with a very clear concept for the Fund. Wyatt’s experience is to favour momentum rather than waiting for perfect conditions. Gavin shares at the Market Information Day, “We just went off and basically did it… we incrementally went on the process of designing as we went through”. 

Wyatt is committed to meeting businesses where they are. “There is no formal application process or template,” Gavin says. CLIF is now 90 per cent subscribed across six South Australian businesses, from a Ngarrindjeri-led pipi harvesting enterprise to a First Nations seaweed farm, with no defaults to date. 

Where there is no alignment, Gavin’s advice is simple: “Be quick to say no”, but without leaving businesses hanging. Where businesses are not yet loan-ready, Wyatt connects them with organisations better placed to support them. 

What collaborative deals demand in practice 

The report cites a collaborative deal with six other investors. Wyatt was clear to say that this is not a critique of philanthropic colleagues, but their reflections on hindsight as they consider what they can do differently.  

In mid-2024, the group committed just over $4 million to a $5 million deal, with a central intermediary coordinating due diligence and backend processes. Even so, 18 months on at the time of writing the report, settlement was still pending. 

Despite all good intentions and previous co-investment success, “you can’t just assume things will sail through five investment committees,” Gavin reflects.  

Shared backend processes may sound efficient, but investors bring different risk appetites. When those differences lead to delays and extra due diligence, it is the business seeking capital, not the investors, that bears the cost in lost time and resources. 

On starting in impact investing 

For foundations, super funds and family offices still on the sidelines, the report’s message is simple: start somewhere. As Wyatt puts it, “Don’t seek perfection, because that doesn’t exist. Progress over perfection.” 
 
The report also makes a case for organisations of every size: “You don’t need to be the largest foundation to be an impactful one”. Taking an impact approach requires ongoing effort to educate stakeholders and align partnerships. Finding the right collaborators means asking difficult questions and the courage to walk away when values no longer align, even at short-term cost. 

Read Perspectives on Investing for more of Wyatt’s lessons and case studies in impact investing, including voices from impact leaders, fund managers, business founders, and people with lived and living experience of poverty.