ImpactAlpha Open

Family office impact investing + Native community finance

Dennis Price · July 15, 2025

Hi there, Agent of Impact! Welcome to ImpactAlpha Open, a free weekly sampling of the top news and views from ImpactAlpha.

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In this week’s Open:

  • Liesel Pritzker Simmons on mobilizing wealthy families for impact
  • Podcast: David Bank on the urgency of climate adaptation
  • Spotlight: Local capital for African growth firms with Mirepa’s Samuel Yeboah 
  • Call: How Melissa Pegus is building a youth-centered economy

Let’s jump in. – Dennis Price

Must-reads on ImpactAlpha

  • Blue Haven’s Liesel Pritzker Simmons on family office impact investing in perilous times (Q&A). Climate action, racial equity and even systems-change are all fine. But when Liesel Pritzker Simmons starts talking about a global wealth tax, she finds that some of her billionaire peers are apt to say, “Liesel, settle down.” In a wide-ranging conversation, Pritzker Simmons told ImpactAlpha’s David Bank, “I would love a little bit more noise from the impact investing family office space around this one.” Hear her out.
  • Native CDFIs are positioned to step up, even without promised federal funds. Despite the clawing back of what were to be historic federal investments, Native CDFIs are still poised to step up, with growing investor interest and creative financing structures that are helping the local lenders expand their impact. “There is a way to invest now to create alpha. And Indian Country is ready,” says Kate Finn of the Tallgrass Institute (formerly known as First Peoples Worldwide) at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Learn how.
  • Chicago turns to low-cost municipal bonds to ‘get the lead out’ of its water pipes. Last month, the city of Chicago made a meaningful downpayment on changing the health trajectory for hundreds of thousands of children and women of childbearing age. To do so, the city used that oldest of impact financing tools: the general obligation municipal bond. “There appears to be momentum, willingness and ability to meet the existential health crisis of lead water pipes in Chicago,” writes Eric Glass of Clarion Call Capital, which invested in the Chicago general obligation deal. Keep reading.

Sponsored by SOCAP

✅ From transactions to trust: Building LP-GP alignment for deeper impact

Investing conferences are often filled with big ideas and promising connections. Follow-through can be lacking – no matter where you sit. “For LPs, that might look like hearing compelling pitches without gaining clarity on who is ready for partnership,” writes SOCAP Global’s Sarah Sterling in a post on ImpactAlpha. “For GPs, it’s the struggle to find capital partners who not only ‘get it’ but who are ready to commit and co-create new models of investment rooted in trust and long-term vision.” To facilitate deeper, values-aligned partnerships, SOCAP will host Capital Connections Day at its flagship conference in San Francisco in October. “Instead of trying to simply accelerate deal flow, Capital Connections Day slows the conversation down,” Sterling says. “It offers space for LPs and GPs to engage in honest, values-forward dialogue – free from high-stakes pitches and performative networking.” 

Agents of Impact

🏃 On the move

Jones Thomas, ex- of Capricorn Investment Group, stood up GreenScale Capital to partner with climate companies to design bankable projects.

Sharyanne McSwain became president of Echoing Green to co-lead the organization alongside CEO Cheryl Dorsey.

British International Investment added Harsha Sanyukta of Sattva Consulting as a development impact intern.

The Week’s Podcast

🎧 This Week in Impact: The urgency of adaptation

Host Brian Walsh takes up ImpactAlpha’s top stories with editor David Bank. Up this week: New urgency around investments in climate adaptation and resilience in the wake of the tragic flooding in Texas. How community development financial institutions in Indian country are stepping up – with or without promised federal funding. And, highlights from David’s conversation with Blue Haven Initiative’s Liesel Pritzker Simmons about family offices impact investing in perilous times.

The Week’s Spotlight

💰 Tapping local asset owners to finance growing businesses in Africa (video)

 Mirepa Investment Advisors in Ghana had to do a lot of groundwork to raise its maiden impact fund. The fund backs enterprises that are too large for grants but too early for commercial investors or mainstream private equity and venture capital investors. “We had to get the regulator to understand what we do. We had to get the pension funds involved,” Mirepa’s Samuel Yeboah explains in a video interview for ImpactAlpha’s series, “Pathways to Growth,” produced with the Collaborative for Frontier Finance.

The Week’s Call

🔌 PluggedIn: Building a youth-centered economy (video)

What does it mean to build an inclusive economy? Melissa Pegus, who leads the Future Economy Fund, went to young people to seek some answers. “Young people are our biggest emerging group of consumers. They are going to be the holders of capital,” Pegus told ImpactAlpha’s Sherrell Dorsey on PluggedIn Live. “It behooves us to really get ahead of that demand and build with, instead of building for.” 

Get in the Game

💼 Step up

  • Wellington Management Company is seeking a climate innovation principal in New York.
  • Quona Capital is hiring a strategic relations manager in Washington, DC for a hybrid remote role.
  • Illumen Capital is looking for a marketing and an operations intern for part time remote roles this fall.

Dozens of job opportunities are available to subscribers each week on ImpactAlpha’s Career Hub.

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