Greetings Agents of Impact!
In today’s Brief:
- The making of “Nonnas'” impact campaign
- Kimbo Fund’s flexible financing in Angola
- Microsoft’s carbon-removal credit buying spree
- MacArthur tallies follow-on funding for its C3 investments
Featured: Pop Impact
Making, and measuring, a family dinner as an impact investment. The holidays that just passed were meant to be a time for bringing people together. For too many people, they highlighted what the former US surgeon general calls an “epidemic of loneliness and isolation.” How do we turn the longing for community into tangible actions? For “Nonnas,” an Emmy-nominated 2025 film, the answer lay in serving audiences a heaping plate of Italian food, prepared with love and delivered with impact. The film was produced by 1Community, an entertainment production and co-finance company that uses the power of storytelling to drive real-world impact. Founded in 2018, 1Community is the brainchild of veteran producer Scott Budnick, who went from making comedy blockbusters like “The Hangover” and “Old School” to more mission-driven projects like “Just Mercy” and “Winner”. The focus for 1Community is projects with the potential to make “guerrilla impact,” by combining powerful narratives with impact campaigns that move audiences from awareness to action. “We do not want to make the ‘take your medicine, eat your vegetables’ films,” Budnick told ImpactAlpha in 2020. “We want to make commercial films that draw people in, get wide audiences, win awards and can move a lot of people.”
- Staten Island to Netflix. “Nonnas” tells the true story of a grieving man (played by Vince Vaughn) who risks everything to open an Italian restaurant in honor of his recently deceased mom. His unique twist: employing local grandmothers as chefs. The nonnas may hold the secrets to family recipes, but many of them had also lost a sense of purpose and community. The Staten Island restaurant, Enoteca Maria, is still open and serves nonna-approved specialties like lasagna, branzino, and even a roasted lamb’s head. The film was sold to Netflix for a reported $20 million or more and topped Netflix’s charts for several weeks last year. “The ‘Nonnas’ story focused on community and family and culture, which is a throughline for every project we’ve done so far,” says 1Community’s Rachel Cooke. She pointed to multiple impact themes in “Nonnas,” from “engaging older women who may feel left behind by their community or family,” to “an immigration story about Italian-Americans” to “an intergenerational story where people take care of each other and learn from each other.”
- Stories from the table. 1Community partnered with Plus Media Solutions to create a customized Impact Hub for “Nonnas” and spark intergenerational connection through food and storytelling. “Once the attention is grabbed, why not leverage that for action and information?” said Plus Media’s Julie Davitz. A quarter of the visitors to the Impact Hub were interested in watch parties, and more than 200 were scheduled. Viewers wrote more than 130 handwritten notes to older adults. 1Community also created a one-day, sold-out experience in Los Angeles called “Grandma’s House,” with themed rooms curated by local grandmothers. “The data reveals that audiences generate the highest return on attention when provided with infrastructure for action rather than passive reflection,” says Davitz.
- Cultural capital in France. Separately, the best of French creativity was on display at Bpifrance’s recent conference, reports Upstart Co-Lab’s Laura Callanan in her latest dispatch from creative economy gatherings across the globe. Bpifrance is a public investment bank with one of the world’s largest funds investing in creative industries. Bpifrance “seeks market rate returns and describes its focus as serving the collective interest with impact at the core of everything they do,” writes Callanan. “Bpifrance describes influence and soft power as a goal of its investment in culture and creativity.” Read her full report.
- Keep reading, “Making, and measuring, a family dinner as an impact investment,” by Dmitriy Ioselevich. Catch up on all of his Pop Impact reviews.
Dealflow: Pathways to Growth
Kimbo Fund provides convertible debt to accelerate an Angolan food-processing business. BFA Asset Management, the investment management firm of Banco de Fomento in Angola, launched Kimbo Fund to provide growth capital to small and mid-sized businesses in the country. It has completed a convertible note to FoodCare, a woman-led food processor of 25 crop varieties ranging from cassava to coffee. The note, originated in dollars rather than Angolan kwanzaa, will support FoodCare’s export growth to the US and Europe. Exports to the two markets already account for nearly all of the business’s revenues. “Our capital is not to test the business model, but to grow the business,” BFA’s Rui Oliveira said.
- Capital fit. The convertible note is an example of BFA’s use of flexible financing that aligns with local businesses’ growth needs. Kimbo Fund writes checks of $250,000 to $2 million for companies in financial services, food and agriculture, and mobility and logistics. Conventional debt or equity is a poor fit for many Angolan small and mid-sized businesses, as well as those in other African countries. “Angola is not a place where you can tick those boxes. It’s a place where you have to use different instruments and different creative structures,” Oliveira said. “My big bet is that we are going to be much more successful because we’re not ticking boxes.”
- Local backers. BFA is halfway to its $20 million fundraising target for Kimbo Fund. The fund was anchored with $5 million from the Angola Sovereign Wealth Fund in 2024. It uses debt and other liquid instruments, which LPs prefer in a difficult fundraising environment (see, “In impact fundraising drought, novel strategies and private credit stand out and, yes, size matters“). “Whoever comes along with us has to appreciate our creativity,” said Oliveira. The firm expects the remaining capital to come from local and diaspora family offices.
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Indigo Ag signs up Microsoft to offtake 2.9 million carbon removal credits. Microsoft is leading the carbon credit gold rush, signing big deals to accelerate techniques that remove carbon from the atmosphere. This week it agreed to purchase credits from Boston-based agriculture tech company Indigo Ag for 2.9 million tons of removed carbon. Through the deal, Indigo Ag will work with thousands of farmers in the US to improve regenerative practices and boost the carbon storage capacity of their soils. The announcement comes a day after Microsoft agreed to buy two million removal credits from Rubicon Carbon via projects that support reforestation and farmer livelihoods in Uganda. Last month, it signed a 3.6 million-credit deal with Houston-based C2X, which captures and stores carbon generated through biofuels production, an approach known as bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, or BECCS. Microsoft has pledged to become net-zero by 2030; its commitments have been a key driver of carbon removal innovation (see, “Corporate buyers nudge voluntary carbon markets toward higher-quality projects“).
- Carbon pricing. Indigo Ag’s soil carbon credits currently sell at $60 to $80 per ton, putting the Microsoft deal in the range of $170 million to $230 million at today’s rates. Carbon removal credits fetch higher prices on the voluntary carbon markets than carbon avoidance credits, which attempt to account for carbon that was not emitted into the atmosphere in the first place. Avoidance credits often trade for as low as $1 to $10 per ton. Long-duration carbon removal strategies, like enhanced rock weathering, can fetch hundreds of dollars per ton. The technique involves adding minerals to the soil to boost carbon storage capacity (see, “Mati Carbon leverages its $50 million XPRIZE to remove carbon and support farmers in tropical zones“).
- Check it out.
Dealflow overflow. Investment news crossing our desks:
- Calvert Impact Capital invested $10 million in BlueOrchard’s microfinance strategy in Latin America and the Caribbean, which focuses on women, migrants and Indigenous people. (BlueOrchard)
- UK-based Bridges Fund Management secured £440 million ($590 million) in commitments and co-investment capital for its sixth Property Alternatives fund. (Bridges Fund Management)
- French asset manager Mirova invested $10 million in Indonesia-based Big Tree Farms, an organic coconut processor, via its sustainable land use strategy. (Mirova)
- Switzerland-based Symbiotics led an $18 million debt round for Dugar Finance in India to expand small business and commercial vehicle lending. (Symbiotics)
Signals: Catalytic Capital
MacArthur Foundation’s C3 investments catalyzed more than $3 billion from other investors. The Catalytic Capital Consortium, or C3, is a joint initiative of a dozen foundations and family offices backing impact-first investments globally. The MacArthur Foundation manages the C3 investment portfolio within its $500 million impact investing allocation. A report published today outlines how the foundation measures performance across five dimensions of impact. MacArthur deployed “horizontal” catalytic capital in a half-dozen field partnerships, making investments on the same financial terms as other investors but committing at an earlier stage to crowd in private investment. “Catalytic capital is about much more than concessionary returns,” the report states. “More than half of the initial C3 investments did not hinge on the concept of accepting lower returns but were instead driven by a willingness to accept disproportionate risk.”
- Impact measurement. MacArthur’s team tracked each of its investments against financial returns, impact, and whether the fund kept to its catalytic targets. “Setting portfolio-wide impact targets at the outset was more difficult, so targets were developed at the individual underlying investment level and then aggregated to assess the portfolio performance,” the report states. Financial performance varied, but most funds met or exceeded expectations. And many led to follow on investments in second funds. C3’s largest investments include a $25 million guarantee underpinning the billion-dollar-plus SDG Loan Fund, and allocations to Rockefeller Foundation’s Zero Gap Fund, One Acre Fund and Acumen’s Latin America funds.
- Humility and discipline. In an accompanying guest post on ImpactAlpha, MacArthur’s Charles Coustan calls for humility and discipline in how impact investors measure success. Rather than chasing portfolio-wide impact or claiming precise attribution, the foundation judges impact – and financial performance – against investment-specific expectations. “We believe our investments contribute to the impact created by our investees. But we do not try to attribute a specific amount of impact to our investments,” writes Coustan. He says MacArthur positions impact measurement not as an exercise in headline numbers, but as a practical tool for accountability and continuous improvement. Keep reading.
- Keep reading, “MacArthur Foundation’s C3 investments catalyzed more than $3 billion from other investors,” by Erik Stein. Through the C3, MacArthur Foundation supports ImpactAlpha’s coverage of catalytic capital.
Agents of Impact: Follow the Talent
Jonathan Rose Companies promotes Brandon Kearse to president and chief investment officer. Carolyn Au is promoted to managing partner… CVS Health Ventures promotes Payal Parikh to principal… The Flora Family Foundation is hiring a chief financial officer… Netherlands-based Bernard van Leer Foundation seeks a mission related investments officer… The Joint Impact Model Foundation has openings for a technical director and executive director… Norfund is hiring interns based in Oslo.
BFA Global is recruiting a research and impact lead based in India or Kenya… CARE Danmark is looking for a consultant for its investment-readiness accelerator program… The East Africa – Nordics Innovation, Trade and Investment Summit is accepting applications for its I4D Innovators Program… The Estonian Centre for International Development Cooperation is issuing grants for projects in Africa supporting entrepreneurship, education, the green transition, digital skills and more… Injini and Mastercard are accepting applications for an edtech fellowship program.
👉 View (or post) impact investing jobs on ImpactAlpha’s Career Hub.
Thank you for your impact!
– Jan. 15, 2026
