ImpactAlpha Open | November 19, 2024

ImpactAlpha Open: Donald Jr. turns impact investor + investing in the social determinants of health

Dennis Price
ImpactAlpha Editor

Dennis Price

Hi there, Agent of Impact! Welcome to ImpactAlpha Open, your free weekly edge in impact investing. Go daily and join thousands of market leaders with an all-access subscription – and take 25% off.

In this week’s Open:

  • The impact investors circling Trump
  • Jay Koh: Financing climate adaptation and resilience
  • Hospitals investing in the social determinants of health
  • Donald Trump Jr. turns impact investor

Let’s jump in. – Dennis Price

Must-reads on ImpactAlpha

  • The impact investors circling Trump. Vice President-elect JD Vance, Pershing Square’s Bill Ackman, Strive Funds’ Vivek Ramaswamy. Never have there been so many impact investors in and around the orbit of a president-elect of the United States, proclaims Imogen Rose-Smith in her latest Institutional Impact column on ImpactAlpha. Even Donald Trump, Jr., is joining his own quasi-impact VC firm (see The Week’s Deal Spotlight below). “The election result is not necessarily entirely bad news for impact,” Rose-Smith writes. “The very societal needs and anxieties that caused a lot of people to vote for Trump are the types of issues that impact investors are seeking to address.” Hear her out.
    • Fiduciary future. During his first administration, Trump’s Securities and Exchange Commission restricted rules on shareholder advocacy, made responsible investing more difficult, and generally gave companies contributing to carbon pollution and injustice a pass. “That did not slow us down,” writes As You Sow’s Andrew Behar in his latest Fiduciary Future column. “Our response then, as now, is to unite as a community and stand firm against adversity.” Read Behar’s column.
  • Global climate leadership shifts east and south at COP. In the face of a likely US retreat, Brazil, China and even Azerbaijan are claiming climate leadership, Amy Cortese writes in her roundup on COP29. “What we should expect, starting here in Baku, is for the rest of the world to band together and demonstrate that we’re moving forward with or without Trump’s administration,” says Mohamed Adow of Power Shift Africa. African nations are pushing for $1.3 trillion per year in climate funding by 2030. “Let’s dispense with the idea that climate finance is charity,” said the UN’s Simon Stiell at COP29’s opening on Monday. “An ambitious new climate finance goal is entirely in the self-interest of every nation, including the largest and wealthiest.” Check it out.
    • Women lead the way at ‘the Finance COP.’ A persistent crew of women are putting themselves in the center of high-stakes climate conversations in Baku. “We’re really seeing women’s leadership show up by getting to the heart of what needs to be solved for and coming up with right-sized, fit for purpose, proximate solutions,” says Sana Kapadia of Heading for Change on the latest Agents of Impact podcast. Read on and listen in.
  • In private equity, energy transition trends may trump Trump. Private equity investors are shoring up their portfolio companies to maintain the momentum of the energy transition despite political headwinds, as ImpactAlpha’s Snehal Shah reported from the SuperReturn conference in New York. “We’re bullish on the long term trends,” said Scott Chung of Tikehau Capital. Read more.
  • Building Africa’s pipeline of local capital. Political volatility in the US is putting African countries on edge about the US’s commitments and support.Africa’s impact and philanthropic players have been working to engage local investors and capital providers to buffer the development agenda from the whims of foreign governments and investors. “We need to start thinking about the unique Afro-centric pots of capital that we can tap into,” Frank Aswani of the African Venture Philanthropy Alliance told ImpactAlpha’s Lucy Ngige. Check it out.
  • How hospitals can partner with community lenders. Less than 20% of health outcomes stem from clinical care; at least 80% is shaped by social and environmental factors. As nonprofit hospitals shift from volume-based to value-based care, a powerful opportunity has emerged to invest in the social determinants of health, including housing, food and neighborhood safety, Ibrahim Rashid explains in a guest post. See how.

Agents of Impact

🌱 Jay Koh, the Lightsmith Group: Financing climate adaptation and resilience

When Jay Koh co-founded the Lightsmith Group in 2016, few people were talking about the need to invest in solutions to help people adapt to a changing climate. Eight years later, “climate adaptation” is the topic du jour. The dark irony: the worse the climate catastrophe gets, the more valuable climate adaptation solutions become. What Koh calls the “unavoidable opportunity” is commanding new attention from development finance institutions, pension and insurance funds and impact investors. “We’re seeing increased amounts of investor interest in adaptation and climate resilience, because the reality of climate impact is becoming greater year on year on year,” Koh told ImpactAlpha from Baku, Azerbaijan, where the COP29 climate summit is underway.

🏃🏽‍♀️ On the move

  • The Justice Climate Fund named Theresa Bedeau, formerly of Capital One, as chief engagement and strategy Officer.
  • Sustainable Capital Advisors added Stacey Jewell, previously with Rewiring America, as a senior associate.
  • Radical Ventures tapped Richa Mehta, previously a principal at ICONIQ Capital, as a partner to lead a specialized AI fund.

The Week’s Podcast

🎧 This Week in Impact: Global climate leadership

Host Brian Walsh takes up ImpactAlpha’s top stories with editor David Bank. Up this week: The search is on for global climate leadership at COP29; how hospitals are partnering with community lenders to invest in “the social determinants of health”; and, a look at recent impact deals for electricity transmission and storage in India and lithium extraction and battery recycling in Germany.

The Week’s Deal Spotlight

💲 Donald Jr. turns impact investor to bet on an overlooked market: Trump voters.

Overlooked founders that target underserved consumers and face ingrained biases that hamper their access to capital. Sounds like the basis for an impact investing fund. That’s apparently what Donald Trump Jr. thought when announcing that he had passed on a role in his father’s incoming administration to join up with the venture capital firm 1789 Capital. The underserved market? Conservative-leaning customers. The overlooked founders? Entrepreneurs seeking to reach them, according to the Palm Beach, Fla.-based firm. 

Get in the Game

💼 Step up

  • ISF Advisors seeks a strategy associate for a remote role.
  • Climate Lead is hiring a managing director for global climate strategies in San Francisco.
  • Shift Capital is looking for a development and investments director in Philadelphia.

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