The MMA Praxis Intermediate Income Fund has dedicated a portion of its portfolio to high social impact bonds. To date, over 5.5% of the Fund is invested in bonds supporting renewable energy, immunization, medical research, and local infrastructure improvements. These market rate, positive investments are in addition to the 1% or more of the fund dedicated to below-market-rate community development investments.

Wind and Solar Energy
The charge to care for God’s creation and leave a better world for future generations is a responsibility we all carry. The MMA Praxis Intermediate Income Fund exhibits this stewardship investing value by investing in bond issues that help finance major wind and solar energy projects.

One of these projects is the Biglow Canyon Wind Farm in Sherman County, Oregon. This wind farm is a project of Portland General Electric Company (PGE) and will eventually include 217 wind turbines – 76 are already operational and generating electricity. The Fund purchased $1.2 million in bonds for this project.

Another bond investment (worth $0.67 million) is in FPL Energy/Caithness Funding Corp’s solar farm in the Mojave Desert of California. This bond issue was used to fund construction of two 80 Megawatt solar electricity generating stations and continues to help finance other aspects of the project.

MMA Praxis also holds $1 million in ten-year bonds from LL&P Wind Energy, Inc. LL&P is using this money – part of a $54 million bond issue – to finance costs associated with acquiring energy rights to the White Creek Wind Project, located near Goldendale, WA. Construction of the wind farm is nearly complete and includes 89 wind turbine generators (2.3 MW each), providing enough electricity to power 38,000 residences.

Funding Geothermal Energy
MMA Praxis has purchased $1 million in bonds of the Salton Sea Funding Corp., a corporation organized to issue the project financing for several operating geothermal plants in the Imperial Valley of California. The Salton Sea projects are a series of 10 generating plants which produce electricity from naturally occurring geothermal steam. The electricity is then sold primarily to Southern California Edison, a large utility company, and distributed to households and businesses.

(more…)