NAB Foundation Launches $50 Million Impact Fund with Focus on Housing and Climate
With $25 million already committed, the new Impact Investment Fund aims to deliver both social outcomes and risk-adjusted financial returns, starting with affordable housing.
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The NAB Foundation has unveiled a new $50 million Impact Investment Fund (IIF), which targets social and environmental outcomes alongside financial performance. Affordable housing is among its top priorities.
Launched at the Asia Pacific Impact Investment Summit in Sydney on Wednesday, the fund has already allocated $25 million of its capital, with $10 million deployed and a further $25 million expected by October 2026.
Speaking at the launch, NAB Group Executive and JBWere Chair Cathryn Carver said the fund reflected NAB’s broader ambition to create long-term value for both communities and investors.
“Directing capital to aligned impact investments opens up new ways for the Foundation to create positive and lasting change,” said Carver. “The NAB Foundation is already supporting crucial community initiatives through up to $6 million in grants annually, and this fund adds another layer of strategic impact.”
The fund will be managed by JBWere, NAB’s wealth management arm, and will focus on investments aligned with three key pillars: Indigenous economic advancement, social and affordable housing, and climate transition. The initiative is part of the Foundation’s broader $170 million corpus and marks a deliberate shift into outcomes-driven capital deployment.
JBWere CEO Michael Saadie said the firm is seeing a significant uptick in clients seeking performance with purpose.
“Impact investing is a growing area of focus for those looking to invest effectively for performance and purpose,” said Saadie. “We’re proud to partner with the NAB Foundation, alongside hundreds of other purpose-driven clients.”
To oversee the fund’s governance, a specialist Investment Committee has been formed, chaired by Ben Smith, Head of Impact Investing at the Paul Ramsay Foundation. Smith said the committee is especially encouraged by NAB’s appetite to invest across the risk-return spectrum to unlock high-impact opportunities.
“The Committee is excited by the potential of the Fund, especially with NAB Foundation’s willingness to invest across the risk/return spectrum to generate high impact return,” he said.
The committee will work closely with JBWere to identify and vet investment opportunities, provide due diligence, and ensure accountability in impact measurement — a crucial step as Australia’s impact investing market matures.
The move comes as investors increasingly look to align portfolios with environmental and social outcomes, especially in sectors like housing, where demand far exceeds supply. NAB’s entry into this space via the Foundation is being seen as both a strategic capital allocation and a signal of institutional leadership.
With this fund, NAB joins a growing list of financial institutions leveraging balance sheets and philanthropic capital to accelerate solutions to some of the country’s most urgent challenges — from housing affordability to climate resilience.
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The Federal Budget may have softened some of its proposed tax reforms, but it has exposed a bigger issue: too many families are relying on wealth structures that no longer reflect the realities of modern life.
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For many Australians, the 2026 Federal Budget initially felt like a direct challenge to the way wealth is created, held and transferred between generations.
The headlines were immediate: changes to capital gains tax, reforms to discretionary trusts, restrictions on negative gearing and increased scrutiny of investment structures. Unsurprisingly, affluent families, business owners and investors began asking the same question:
Is the way we hold our wealth still fit for purpose?
In recent days, the government has announced several significant amendments following industry consultation and public feedback, including exempting testamentary trusts from the proposed 30 per cent minimum tax and expanding capital gains tax concessions for small businesses.
The backdown is welcome. But it also highlights something much bigger.
This Budget has accelerated a conversation that many Australian families have been postponing for years.
The conversation is not really about tax. It is about wealth stewardship.
For decades, Australians have built wealth through businesses, property, investments and careful long-term planning. Yet many families have not revisited the legal structures surrounding those assets in years, sometimes decades.
We often see clients who have spent years building significant wealth, only to discover their legal arrangements no longer reflect their current circumstances.
Their children are now adults. They may own multiple properties.
They may have sold a business, entered a second marriage, become grandparents or accumulated digital assets that did not exist when their original estate plans were prepared.
The trust that distributes income may need to be reconsidered. The bucket company may no longer be so attractive.
The Budget has simply exposed a reality that already existed: wealth structures cannot remain static while life continues to evolve.
Importantly, trusts themselves are not the issue.
Trusts are legitimate planning tools that provide flexibility, protection and continuity. When used appropriately, they allow families to adapt to changing circumstances over time.
And neither is tax the issue, really. Getting the fundamentals right is more important for long-term, sustainable wealth than a few favourable tax treatments around the edges.
The real issue is complacency.
Too often, families create structures and assume the job is done. It isn’t.
Estate planning is no longer a document you sign once and file away in a drawer. It is an ongoing process that should evolve alongside your life.
We are also seeing a broader shift in how Australians define wealth itself. It is no longer just the family home and an investment portfolio.
Modern wealth includes businesses, digital assets, cryptocurrency, intellectual property, frequent flyer points and increasingly complex family arrangements.
At the same time, Australians are living longer than ever before, meaning wealth may need to support multiple generations simultaneously. This creates new responsibilities and new risks.
How do you help your children enter the property market without exposing family wealth to relationship breakdowns?
How do you structure wealth so that it remains a source of opportunity rather than future conflict?
These are the questions families should be asking now.
The recent debate surrounding testamentary trusts also serves as an important reminder that policy decisions can have unintended consequences for vulnerable Australians. It is encouraging that the government has listened to feedback and clarified its position.
But the lesson remains: the wealth landscape is changing.
Increasingly, governments, regulators and tax authorities are paying closer attention to how wealth is held and transferred. That means families cannot afford to adopt a “set-and-forget” approach to their structures.
The families who will be best placed for the future are not necessarily those with the greatest wealth.
They are the families with the greatest clarity. Clarity around ownership, succession and governance. And clarity around how wealth will transition from one generation to the next.
Ultimately, preserving wealth is not about avoiding change.
It is about preparing for it.
Because the greatest risk is not change itself.
It is losing the ability to respond to it.
Anthony Hunt is Co-Founder of Wealth Lawyers and former COO of Westpac Private Bank. He advises business owners, investors and affluent Australian families on wealth protection, succession planning and intergenerational wealth transfer
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