The Brief

The Week in impact investing: Going local

ImpactAlpha · February 13, 2026
Credit: Invest Detroit

TGIF, Agents of Impact! We’re taking a Brief break for the Presidents’ Day holiday in the US. We’ll be back in your inbox on Tuesday, Feb. 17.

  • Roundup: Diversification
  • Podcast: Reports from Washington, DC, Philadelphia and Cape Town
  • Chart: The Great Consolidation
  • Spotlight: Shaping food systems through school meals

🗣 Diversification. Former US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously called states “the laboratories of democracy.” They have become the redoubts of progress as well. This week’s move by the US Environmental Protection Agency to abandon decades of scientific consensus and strip its own power to regulate greenhouse gases moves climate action in the US to the states. According to one legal theory, if the federal government can’t regulate such emissions, neither can it preempt, say California, from doing so on its own. “We will not stop fighting to protect the American people from pollution,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom of California and Gov. Tony Evers of Wisconsin, co-chairs of the 24-state US Climate Alliance.

Cities, by necessity, have also become inventive in mobilizing private capital for public good. Dennis Price led a discussion at the Urban Institute’s new Center for Local Finance and Growth, showcasing initiatives by Invest Detroit, The Port in Cincinnati and others to finance local projects as federal money dries up. “It’s not a sense of fear. It’s a sense of opportunity,” Dennis says on This Week in Impact. “It’s, ‘We are the ones that know how to do this.’” Roodgally Senatus took readers on a visual tour of Philadelphia’s Kensington district, where the Kensington Corridor Trust is demonstrating a neighborhood-led model of revival without displacement. At the state level, Fran Seegull of the US Impact Investing Alliance detailed Illinois’ efforts to require large companies to report workforce investment data, after the retreat by the federal Securities and Exchange commission on pending rules for the disclosure of human capital management practices. 

Bad Bunny’s joyful Super Bowl halftime show, with its detailed recreation of sugar cane fields, food stalls and a party at “La Casita,” read as a celebration of vibrant, local economies (and, implicitly, of the economic benefits of immigration that are being undermined by the federal crackdown). In Cape Town, Jessica Pothering dug into the local nuances of mining for critical materials at a time when global demand is creating new opportunities to put Africa first (Dalberg Advisors’ Shyam Sundaram and Jeff Berger offered suggestions for seizing that opportunity). Harvard Business School’s Shawn Cole and Jonah Zahnd mapped student pathways into impact investing careers. 

The US policy retreat hasn’t stopped the biggest asset managers from raising record sums for renewable energy and infrastructure, as Amy Cortese and Roody reported; Erik Stein mined our database to identify two dozen LPs backing the big climate fund managers. As the adage goes, think globally, act – well, Agents of Impact know where the action is. – David Bank

Next Week’s Call

☎️ Shaping the algorithm for ‘good AI.’ “Early system-design choices around data control, model dependency, interoperability and accountability are increasingly shaping downstream outcomes that affect not just individual companies, but entire portfolios,” Project Liberty Institute’s Paul Fehlinger wrote on ImpactAlpha (see, “How investors are rethinking alpha, risk and demand in the AI stack”). Fehlinger will join Katy Knight of Siegel Family Endowment, Mohamed Nanabhay of Mozilla Ventures, Omidyar Network’s Chris Jurgens and other (human) Agents of Impact to sketch an emerging investment thesis around “good AI.” The call kicks off ImpactAlpha’s “Shaping the Algorithm” beat, in partnership with Siegel Family Endowment. Answer the Call, Wednesday, Feb. 18, at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm London.

The Week’s Podcasts

🎧 This Week in Impact. Host Brian Walsh takes up ImpactAlpha’s top stories with Jessica Pothering, Dennis Price and Roodgally Senatus. Up this week: Jessica reports from Cape Town on how Africa’s mining industry is leveraging global demand for critical minerals; Dennis shares takeaways from the launch of Urban Institute’s Center for Local Finance and Growth; and Roody reports from Philadelphia on Kensington Corridor Trust’s neighborhood-led revival.

📯 Criterion Institute Podcast: Rethinking the role of services in local value creation. Host Joy Anderson is joined by Entrepreneurial Solutions Partners’ Eric Kacou and Charity Kabango to explore what it takes to build thriving businesses and markets in Africa, while centering entrepreneurs as human beings embedded in complex ecosystems. 

The Week’s Chart

The Great Consolidation. Nuveen’s $13.5 billion acquisition of Schroders will create a $2.5 trillion asset manager – and an impact powerhouse. The two firms have a combined $414 billion in private markets investments and active impact strategies. Nuveen, the investment manager of TIAA has raised over $200 million for its second private equity impact fund, halfway towards its $400 million target. The more than two centuries old Schroders in London owns emerging markets-focused impact investor BlueOrchard, among other impact strategies (see, “BlueOrchard’s recipe for moving capital to emerging markets“). The record sums raised by the largest asset managers is putting pressure on mid-sized firms to consolidate. Global financial services deals jumped by 25% last year, in dollar terms, according to PwC. Driving the trend: the push for scale to boost earnings and fend off competitors, wrote PwC’s Christopher Sur. Watch this space. 

The Week’s Deal Spotlight

Using school meals to change food systems and empower local farmers. School meal programs are one of the largest global safety nets. Nearly 80 million children around the world received school meals through government-led efforts last year, up 20% from 2020. Among the benefits of school meal programs: Feeding children at school has been shown to improve attendance, attention and learning. Sourcing from local farmers and suppliers can boost local economies. Rising food prices and declining aid threaten those gains. The School Meals Accelerator aims to help governments, from the US to Africa, stretch school feeding budgets to reach an additional 100 million children by 2030. The new accelerator “is not an imposed, top down, donor-driven thing, especially in a world where donor funds are reducing,” Roy Steiner of the Rockefeller Foundation told ImpactAlpha. “This is a new model of development. It’s locally-owned, nationally-owned and paid for by the government.”

  • Stretching budgets. Rockefeller launched the accelerator with Germany’s Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, Novo Nordisk Foundation and the World Food Programme. The foundation’s $25 million investment follows a $100 million commitment to school meal programs last year. “Academic achievement goes up, especially for girls,” said Steiner. “We can use school meals as a way to create economic development if you source locally.” Countries, such as Brazil, have successfully implemented local sourcing. “We can talk all we want about climate resilient crops, but farmers won’t grow them if there isn’t a demand,” Steiner said.
  • Keep reading and catch up on all of this week’s dealflow reporting.

The Week’s Talent and Jobs

💼 See and share new impact jobs posted this week on ImpactAlpha’s Career Hub. Have a job listing to post? Submit it here.

Lina Srivastava, founder of the Center for Transformational Change, joined Proximate as interim executive director… Ceres appointed former White House official Neal Kemkar as its new chief network officer… Leticia Bueno stepped down as legal counsel at Sustainable Capital Group to Triple Jump… Impact Fund Denmark brought on João Pedro Aquino as an investment manager… Anthony Kigera joined Dutch venture studio Enviu as its agrifood marketing officer in Kenya… JPMorgan Chase promoted Connor Bercik to senior associate of sustainable investing.

That’s a wrap. Have a wonderful weekend. 

– Feb. 13, 2026