Their work advances the growth of strong societies in Israel and Palestine based on socio-economic mobility and inclusion for minorities and marginalised groups.
(“Who We Are – Portland Trust”) The Portland Trust was founded in London in 2003 by Sir Ronald Cohen, co-founder and former chairman of the private equity firm Apax Partners, pioneering philanthropist, venture capitalist, and private equity investor, and chair of the Social Impact Investment Taskforce established under the UK's presidency of the G8, together with Sir Harry Solomon, co-founder and former chairman and CEO of Hillsdown Holdings (“Board of Trustees”).
The other trustees are Mick Davis, Chairman of MacSteel, a global trading and shipping company and an investor, director and advisor to other companies in the resource, technology and financial services sectors, and Nicola Cobbold, who has spent the past 14 years in the not-for-profit sector, with a particular focus on improving outcomes through sustainable economic development and social impact investment.
Portland is also involved in ground-breaking projects in the Sakhnin Valley in Israel in health and medtech creating employment opportunities and training for Orthodox Druze women and Arab youth and Haredi men into hi-tech.
Portland also helped lay the foundations of Rawabi, Palestine's first and only master planned city, now home to its newest vibrant tech hub.
(“Current Projects – Portland Trust”) 2) Development Impact Bond (DIB) for Type II Diabetes The Portland Trust worked with 150 pre-diabetic women in West Bank refugee camps over a 3-year period with Juzoor, a local public health organisation with a strong track-record of working with women in impoverished areas.
Impact bonds are outcomes-based contracts where investors provide upfront capital for the delivery of an intervention with clear measurable outcomes specified by a commissioner.
In 2018, Portland secured funding from the Palestinian Market Development Programme (PMDP) to establish a VLSI lab in the Al-Najah university in Nablus.
In its 3 years of operation 70,000 people were provided with microfinance; Sharaka was successfully re-established, and The Palestine Monetary Authority (PMA) became the official regulatory body for the sector.
10) Loan Guarantees The project enabled banks to extend credit and affordable finance provision for Palestinian small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
Designed as a temporary 10 year intervention to address credit system bottlenecks and stimulate lending, approximately 100 loans were approved totalling $147m.
Portland worked with this group of leading Palestinian businesses to champion a comprehensive long term spatial vision for Gaza that sets out in detail 70 implementable projects with great catalytic potential to create effective change in the underlying economic condition.
Portland continues to facilitate and mentor Lotus's activity, developing each cohort and matchmaking for roles in the Israeli hi-tech sector.
Lotus operates a hub for dozens of women developers and data analysts, who command a high entry salary in leading software companies.
Participants are young Arab engineers, graduates of Israeli universities, who are trained and placed in selected hi-tech companies as juniors, at the same time bringing back previously off-shored positions to Israel.
Following meticulous analysis and design, it has been embedded as part of the five-year Government Resolution 550 plan, which allocated 35 billion Shekels to integrate and boost the Arab population's socio-economic status.
Implementation is taking place in tight cooperation with the Ministries of Finance, Economy, Education and Equality, the Board of Arab Mayors, and several civil society organisations.
5) Developing a Regional Economic Growth Strategy for the Arab sector in Israel – Sakhnin Valley Portland is leading the creation of a health and medtech centre of excellence in the regional economic cluster of the Sakhnin Valley in the north, to address the gaps and imbalances between Arab and Jewish communities, and engender workforce integration.
The plan will see a new health and life sciences industrial park, creating vast job opportunities and high-quality employment in the area.
The implementation of the plan will lead to an expansion of the supply of jobs, high-quality and diverse employment, and improvement of the cluster's assets and the local economy.
Israel's first SIB targeted the reduction of dropout rates among computer science students at higher education institutions, and has focused on the prevention of Type II Diabetes, and enhancing maths achievements for Bedouin youth.