TGIF, Agents of Impact! We’re taking a brief break for the Independence Day holiday in the US, which means you get a Brief break, too. We’ll be back in your inbox on Tuesday, July 8th.
In today’s Brief:
- Roundup: Interdependence Day
- New podcasts from ImpactAlpha, The Criterion Institute and Community Capital Live
- Pop Impact: Ocean’s powerful case for marine conservation
The Week in Impact Investing: Self-Evident
🗣 Interdependence Day. Before the hot dogs and fireworks, I like to inflict on our July 4th barbeque guests my spirited annual reading of the United States’ founding document. That tradition feels particularly apt for this 249th anniversary of the day in Philadelphia when the founders declared that all of us are created equal. So I was pleased to see how the conservative and courageous Judge Michael Luttig updated the baroque 18th century language for our own perilous times, solemnly declaring “these self-evident truths of freedom—and of tyranny.” As Luttig frames them, concepts like “rule of law,” “separation of powers,” “a nation of immigrants” and “the right to dissent” are neither partisan nor radical. Nor should be shared prosperity, clean and abundant energy, food security and affordable and accessible health care. The silver lining, such as it is, in the big but not beautiful bill pushed through Congress this week is that the reaction to its patently negative impacts could forge a renewed consensus around a common-sense path forward. “We must meet it with a resurrection,” declared Bishop William J. Barber II,“and build a movement together that can reconstruct our democracy.”
The Reconstruction is well underway. In a guest post this week, Convergence’s Joan Larrea sketched a roadmap for the expansion of blended finance in the face of cutbacks in official development assistance, or foreign aid. Urgency to fill development finance gaps with private money was “the single dominant theme” at the Financing for Development summit in Seville, Spain, Leslie Maasdorp of British International Investment told ImpactAlpha’s Jessica Pothering, even if development finance institutions like BII have typically been less than transparent about their records of capital deployment and mobilization. One healthy shift: the increasing provision of early stage debt, rather than equity, for growing businesses in emerging markets, to “meet companies where they are, align repayment with reality, and build resilience through ownership retention,” as Beyond Capital’s Eva Yazhari put it in her guest post. A less healthy trend is the boom in defense spending, particularly in Europe, which has venture capital investors piling on. VentureESG’s Susan Winterberg and Johannes Lenhard urged responsible investors to engage the complicated issues to set defense-investment safeguards and policies.
Compared to, say, major universities or law firms, private investors may well have relative impunity to pursue the common-sense agenda. Erik Stein reported from US SIF’s annual gathering, where Veris Wealth Partners’ Stephanie Cohn Rupp urged Agents of Impact to defend the freedom to invest, “not just in the world as it is—but in the world as it could be.” While Congress was busy casting millions off of Medicaid, Roodgally Senatus went to a different neighborhood in Washington DC to chronicle the construction of a ‘Recovery Cafe’ that could help reduce hospital admissions in the first place. Institutionalizing a “duty of care” for all stakeholders is a long game. This week, ImpactAlpha was proud to republish, 18 years later, the late Andrew Kassoy’s seminal essay reconciling profit and purpose. “It is time for all of us to sign a Declaration of Interdependence, grounded in both the hard realities of our time and the transcendent capabilities of humanity,” Kassoy wrote then. “The purpose of my capital now is to help build a marketplace of ideas, talent, and capital that will improve the condition of every human being and the earth we collectively inhabit.” – David Bank
Next Week’s Call
🔌 PluggedIn: Investing in a future economy built for young people. In July’s PluggedIn conversation, ImpactAlpha’s Sherrell Dorsey sits down with Melissa Pegus, managing partner of the Future Economy Fund, to unpack how capital can drive structural change by investing in solutions built for and by young people. Born out of a partnership with Girls for Gender Equity, the Future Economy Fund advances housing security, economic opportunity, climate resilience and ownership for the next generation – centering youth voices in shaping investment priorities as both a moral imperative and a smart strategy.
- RSVP today for the next PluggedIn, July 8th at 10am ET / 1pm ET / 6pm London.
The Week’s Podcasts
🎧 This Week in Impact. Host Brian Walsh takes up ImpactAlpha’s top stories with editor David Bank. Up this week: Doing more with less – the blended finance fallout from shrinking development aid and a shuttered USAID. A call for responsible investors to invest in… defence companies. And, remembering B Lab’s Andrew Kassoy, an Agent of Impact who launched a movement to align capital with purpose.
- Listen to the new episode of This Week in Impact. Get the podcast in your feed by subscribing on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube.
📯 The Criterion Institute Podcast: Burnout, autonomy and the cost of leadership. Criterion’s Joy Anderson discusses feeling overwhelmed in today’s world, the difference between self-diagnosis and honest reflection, and the significance of autonomy and control in one’s work life. She emphasizes the need for structure and accountability, freedom in decision-making and the power of choice. Tune in.
🏘️ Community Capital Live: Building a sustainable future in Appalachia. Host Joel Skene speaks with Annie Forrest of the REDF Appalachian Growth Fund, a mission-driven initiative scaling social enterprises in Appalachia. Their conversation ranges across job creation, the region’s unique challenges and opportunities and the role of impact investing in building a sustainable ecosystem for employment-focused social enterprises. Watch now.
Weekend Watching: Pop Impact
‘Ocean’ makes the case for marine conservation and global cooperation. Many readers will spend time at the beach this summer, and enjoy the bounty of the world’s oceans. Below the surface, marine life is in urgent need of protection. That’s the message of Ocean, the new documentary from David Attenborough, streaming now on Disney+ and produced with National Geographic. It may be Attenborough’s most urgent and compelling documentary yet, writes Dmitriy Ioselivich in his latest Pop Impact review. He calls Ocean a masterpiece and awards it Pop Impact’s first perfect score of fifteen – the full five points each for entertainment, accuracy and impact.
- Hope and heroes. Ocean illustrates how marine ecosystems regulate climate, feed billions and generate half of our planet’s oxygen. It also documents how, despite these services, humans treat oceans as disposable, subjecting them to global warming, overfishing, plastic pollution and deep-sea mining. In a companion book co-authored with Colin Butfield, Attenborough writes that marine ecosystems need “time and space to rebound.” He champions the global “30 by 30” conservation goal, which seeks to protect 30% of land and oceans by 2030. “We have done such a good job of telling the stories of demise and collapse,” Attenborough reflects. “Going forward, our stories of innovation, hope and heroes are of equal importance.” Ocean, writes Ioselevich, tells those stories beautifully, in service to public policy and private investment to safeguard Earth’s most critical ecosystems.
- Keep reading, “‘Ocean’ makes the case for marine conservation and global cooperation,” by Dmitriy Ioselevich on ImpactAlpha.
The Week’s Dealflow, Talent and Jobs
💼 See and share more the dozens of new impact jobs posted this week on ImpactAlpha’s Career Hub and view hundreds of more jobs in impact investing and sustainable finance. Have a job listing to post? Submit it here.
And catch up on all of this week’s dealflow reporting.
In people moves, Joseph Blasi, a leading researcher on employee ownership for more than a half-century, stepped down as director of the Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing at Rutgers University… Brandi Colander stepped up as interim CEO of DC Green Bank, following last month’s departure of former CEO Trisha Miller… Lauren Stebbins, previously with Barra Foundation, will become the Patricia Kind Family Foundation’s executive director later this month (see, “In Philadelphia, a dozen foundations are starting to deploy local endowments for local impact”).
The Ford Foundation’s board of trustees has selected Heather Gerken, dean of Yale Law School, to become the organization’s 11th president in November this year (disclosure: Ford Foundation is an investor in ImpactAlpha)… Ninety One appointed David Knee, previously with M&G Investments, as head of multi-asset starting later this year… NeighborWorks Capital welcomed Ben Greenberg, former lending director of Housing Partnership Network, as chief lending and customer engagement officer.
Energy Impact Partners welcomed Anisa Mechler, previously with Bain & Company, as senior vice president of research and innovation… Impacta VC recruits Victor Lau, previously with inDrive, as managing partner… Jitendra Balana, previously with Habitat for Humanity, joined the Asian Development Bank as a senior urban development specialist… Robert Smith, previously with accounting firm RSM US, joined Energy Impact Partners as finance manager… Boston Impact Initiative welcomed Meghan Burke as a marketing and development intern, Patricia Porekuu and Tsega Wondwossen as impact investing interns, and Rajat Kumar as an impact measurement and management intern.
Shahzad Memon was promoted to senior portfolio manager of responsible investments at APG Asset Management… Claudia Appel joined Northcountry Cooperative Foundation as cooperative housing advisor… Chisom A’Marie, previously with New Voices Fund, joined Comcast as director of sustainability strategy… Sherry Wang, previously with Goldman Sachs’ Urban Investment Group, joined Vistria Group as a real estate partner to lead the firm’s affordable housing investing strategy… Ownership Works added Kaeli Rivera, a former credit strategies associate at KKR, as a senior associate of client advisory services.
Closed Loop Partners appointed Daniel Phan, former managing director of Aterian Investment Partners, as managing director and co-head of the firm’s private equity strategy… Arnold Ventures added Christopher Chen, previously with the Gates Foundation, as executive vice president of mission-aligned investments, a newly-created role… Lissa Villani was promoted to senior associate at Recast Capital, a women-owned venture fund of funds that invests in diverse and emerging managers.
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