Greetings Agents of Impact!
In today’s Brief:
- Dispatches from the Skoll World Forum
- Sustainable leather and textiles
- Supporting India’s smallholder farmers
- B Lab’s new blueprint
Featured: Dispatches from Oxford
Rebuilding global aid was (mostly) the talk of the town at Skoll World Forum. Kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery or glass, was a recurring image at last week’s Skoll World Forum in Oxford, UK. It’s an apt metaphor for the shattering of global aid, which was top of mind for many of the philanthropists and funders at the annual gathering, which took place amid the Trump administration’s continued evisceration of USAID, the US government agency that has for six decades anchored global health and development funding. Kintsugi literally translates to “join with gold,” an apt metaphor for the daunting task of piecing global humanitarian assistance together again. Other countries have also pulled back on foreign aid; only Ireland, Korea and Spain have increased their foreign aid budgets this year. “This is not a blip but a long-lasting paradigm shift,” Caroline Bressan of Open Road writes in a guest post in ImpactAlpha.
Funders are being more cautious than in previous emergencies, such as Covid, when many foundations and NGOs sprang into early action. GAVI, the public-private vaccine alliance, helped stand up Covax, which despite missteps and funding shortages, delivered nearly two billion vaccine doses in 146 countries; it is now among those whose US funding has been cut. During the pandemic, the Ford, MacArthur and other foundations issued nearly $3 billion in bonds to expand their ability to respond to the crisis. In the current environment, funders are more cautious in the face of possible political retribution, higher interest rates, and more recently, the hit to their endowments from the stock markets’ wild swings. What Bressan says she heard at the Skoll forum: “The problem is just too big,” and, “We’re waiting until the dust settles.”
- Tapping reserves. Some funders have stepped up, albeit modestly. Forum host Skoll Foundation launched a $25 million “pivot fund” to help its grantees weather cutbacks, and will increase its spending by 30%. Within a week of the freeze, Rippleworks Foundation cut $100,000 grant checks to its portfolio companies. At Open Road, Bressan worked furiously to spin up a $14 million fund for grantees of USAID’s Development Innovation Ventures portfolio. The MacArthur Foundation bumped its planned giving to at least 6% of its assets (foundations typically pay out about 5% of their assets each year, the legal minimum) and adopted a more “flexible, trust-based” approach to grants. “The need for a surge in funding is plain. Philanthropy needs to step up,” MacArthur’s John Palfrey wrote. “We at MacArthur believe it is time to tap our reserves to get more money flowing.”
- Solidarity campaign. Palfrey is also spearheading, with Tonya Allen of the McKnight Foundation and Deepak Bhargava of the Freedom Together Foundation, a “solidarity campaign” to rally nonprofits to stand up to political pressure. The Trump administration has signalled that it will pursue foundations that have focused on diversity, equity and inclusion. The conservative legal activist who went after affirmative action and Fearless Fund asked the IRS to investigate the Gates Foundation and two other philanthropies. “Complacency is complicity,” the foundation executives declared, urging their colleagues to sign a public statement of support for “our First Amendment right to give as an expression of our own distinct values.” Don Chen of Surdna Foundation issued his own call for solidarity. “Foundations must lead – not just with grants, but with guts.”
- Keep reading, “Rebuilding global aid was the (mostly) talk of the town at Skoll World Forum,” by Caroline Bressan on ImpactAlpha.
How financing tools can create value and impact. How to “accelerate impact and build sustainable organizations that are driving critical solutions for communities across the globe” was the question on many people’s minds at the Skoll World Forum, says Acumen’s Amrita Bhandari. New tools can help. “From impact-linked financing, to the range of emerging credit markets, we have an arsenal of instruments ready to reward firms that are generating positive change,” Bhandari writes in a guest post. At the Marmalade Festival, a Skoll-backed event alongside the main forum, Acumen explored how economic systems can incentivize impact value creation. Companies need to be able to measure and prove their impact to reassure funders that impact-linked capital is reaching its intended target. But “we should explore ways to avoid imposing the burden of verification on service or impact providers,” Social Impact Advisors’ Kate Kuper said. Participants agreed on the need for collaboration. Says Bhandari: “Impact investors today have the tools to tie financial value to impact in ways that would have been unimaginable a decade ago.” Get Bhandari’s takeaways.
Gender-lens investing is still ‘smart’. The Trump administration has scrubbed vocabulary around gender and inclusion from agency websites and materials. Financial institutions, corporations and law firms have dialed back their own language and programs in response. In a dispatch from the Skoll World Forum, Sana Kapadia, a long-time builder of the field of gender-lens investing, reminds colleagues that no matter the rhetoric from Washington, “the fundamentals are unchanged.” Research over two decades has built the case that gender and inclusion are material factors in business: considering them in decision-making leads to better returns and impact outcomes, and enhances GDP. “All these things still hold true whether you add the labels or not,” writes Kapadia, who now leads Heading for Change. “The cost of inaction is mounting.” Kapadia cites a raft of investors and impact actors, including Catalyst Fund, ATG Samata, Sweef Capital, Deetken Impact, British International Investment, Acumen, Include Ventures, Skoll Foundation, that are pressing on with gender-smart strategies. At Skoll, she says, she heard “resounding consensus that we can’t afford, nor want, to erase more than 20 years of field building for gender-lens investing just like that.” Read Kapadia’s dispatch.
Dealflow: Sustainable Fashion
Fibers Fund invests in Range Revolution to produce leather sustainably. Cate Havstad-Casad launched Oregon-based Range Revolution four years ago after struggling to find local, sustainably-produced leather for her hat-making business. Range Revolution markets traceable leather from US-based ranches committed to regenerative practices. Fibers Fund provided a $230,000 flexible line of credit to Range Revolution to cover its purchase orders. The loan is structured so that the company can borrow against the value of its orders and grow its network of suppliers. “As Range Revolution’s sales grow and they increase the size of their orders over time, they can borrow more funds,” explained Fibers Fund’s Sarah Kelley, “but it keeps them from borrowing more than they have the capacity to repay.”
- American apparel. Range Revolution is the second investment from Fibers Fund, a women-led investment fund that is pushing for more environmentally and socially sustainable textile production. The Colorado-based fund aims to raise $10 million to provide grants and flexible loans to small producers in the US; a portion of its grants are dedicated for Black-led fiber and textile businesses (see, The Liist). Its first investment was a forgivable loan to Pennsylvania Flax Project, which works with local flax farmers and is building linen processing facilities.
- Policy whiplash. Fibers Fund’s mission is to revitalize the US fiber and textile industry sustainably and responsibly. “The chaotic and unpredictable nature of the tariff rollouts is sowing major uncertainty and instability that is making it harder than ever for businesses in the US textile supply web to remain stable,” Kelley told ImpactAlpha. Small businesses in the sector are also getting hit by funding freezes at the USDA’s Climate Smart Commodities grant program and other supportive programs. “More than anything, we need intentional, sustained investment into the sector by a range of private investors, backed by stable government support,” she said.
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Dealflow overflow. Investment news crossing our desks:
- TPG Rise led a €110 million ($120 million) investment in Enpal, a German supplier of integrated solar panels, heat pumps and other residential “green tech.” (Tech Funding News)
- Sierra Leone’s Pee Cee Holdings, which grows and distributes agricultural goods throughout Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, secured a $12 million loan from the International Finance Corp. to set up a 1,200-acre farm with modern machinery and storage facilities. (IFC)
- Verdant Capital’s Hybrid Fund re-upped its investment LOLC Africa, which has a network of lenders for micro and small businesses in Asia and Africa. (Africa Global Funds)
- Swedfund committed €26 million ($28.5 million) in AfricInvest’s Financial Inclusion Vehicle, which invests in African financial institutions focused on underserved customers and small businesses. (Swedfund)
Short Signals: What We’re Reading
Investment guidance. New standards for responsible business. New policies guiding the use of artificial intelligence. And new uses of catalytic capital top this week’s short signals that we’re reading and watching.
- B Lab’s blueprint. The nonprofit is out with a rewrite of standards for B Corp certification, used by over 9,000 businesses. B Corp-certified companies must now meet performance standards across seven impact topics, such as “fair work” and “climate action.” A negative impact assessment bars companies from certification – for example, if they generate 1% or more of revenue from harmful activities, including gambling and prisons. (B Lab)
- Reasonably responsible AI policy. The White House released new guidance on federal agencies’ use of artificial intelligence, replacing a Biden-era executive order. To the relief of responsible AI advocates, the guidance reaffirms concepts such as trust and accountability, and includes concrete risk mitigation requirements (listen to the podcast, “Responsible AI in the Age of Trump”). “I think this guide looks pretty good,” says TechBetter’s Ravit Dotan. “I’m optimistic about its impact.” (Ravit Dotan)
- Catalyzing capital for upskilling. Investors have used flexible and risk-tolerant capital to mobilize capital for housing, financial services, climate change and other solutions overlooked by market-rate capital. A new report chronicles the history of catalytic capital and explores how it can help fill financing gaps for skills training, mentorship and other workforce innovations. (Tyton Partners)
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Agents of Impact: Follow the Talent
Dao Nguyen of The New York Times, joins the board of directors at Media Development Investment Fund… The Climate Solutions Fund is recruiting a managing director in Washington, DC… Morgan Stanley Inclusive and Sustainable Ventures is hiring an associate in New York.
Village Capital is looking for an investment analyst in Kenya… Aboriginal Investment NT seeks a director of investments in Darwin City in Australia’s Northern Territory… BlueHub Capital is hiring a portfolio analyst in Boston.. Acumen America seeks a partnerships and operations associate in San Francisco.
👉 View (or post) impact investing jobs on ImpactAlpha’s Career Hub.
Thank you for your impact!
– April 10, 2025
