ImpactAlpha Open

Investing in refugees + climate’s lessons for responsible AI

Dennis Price · March 17, 2026

Greetings Agents 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:

  • Investing in refugees
  • Climate’s lessons for responsible AI
  • The ‘longevity economy’
  • Podcasts: Bryan Goh, Ashley Bell, Roy Swan and Christine Looney

Let’s jump in. – Dennis Price 

Must-Reads on ImpactAlpha

  • Conflict in the Middle East creates (even more) refugees in need of livelihoods, services and impact investment. The bombs falling on Iran and Lebanon have set off a new humanitarian crisis in a world already struggling to support more than 122 million people displaced by conflict. Impact advisory firm iGravity is among a number of organizations testing creative financing solutions for displaced people. “Refugees are often perceived as a burden. We’re trying to change the narrative,” Elmer tells ImpactAlpha’s Lucy Ngige. “We’re showing the opportunity and the economic case for inclusion.” Get the full story.
  • Responsible AI should be a top priority for impact investors. Climate investing offers lessons. “From corporate engagement on fossil fuel production, to the development of climate-related financial disclosures and sector-specific materiality maps, investors are familiar with the tools, frameworks and approaches that worked for climate,” Daniel Firger of Great Circle Capital Advisors, who shares insights from a white paper published with Omidyar Network. “AI needs all of that, and it needs it on a compressed timeline.” Dive in.
  • Profit and punishment: The portfolio risks lurking inside private prisons. Kristi Noem may be out as head of the Department of Homeland Security, but the $45 billion in federal funding for immigration detention in the One Big Beautiful Bill remains. The tax bill’s passage led to a surge in share prices for CoreCivic and Geo Group, the two dominant publicly-traded operators of detention centers in the US. Despite expected growth in contracts and profits, the private prison sector is full of risk for investors, says As You Sow’s Andrew Behar in his latest Fiduciary Future column. Read his full take.

Agents of Impact

  • Symbiotics tapped Yvan Renaud to become CEO. 
  • Hela Fourati-Triki, formerly at BloomScale, joined Bpifrance as vice president of private equity, focusing on Africa.
  • Verónica López de la Lama, formerly at Solidaridad Network, joined Amazonia Impact Ventures as impact and ESG lead.

The Week’s Podcasts

🎧 This Week in Impact 

Host Brian Walsh takes up ImpactAlpha’s top stories with editor David Bank: Conflict in the Middle East creates (even more) refugees in need of livelihoods, services and impact investment; how to build investment portfolios that values and supports aging; and, the risks to investors lurking inside private prisons.

🦸 Agents of Impact: Ashley Bell and Bryan Goh

Redemption Bank’s Ashley Bell joined Davidto talk about the newest Black-owned bank in the US – based in an affluent, mostly white suburb of Salt Lake City. Whereas most Black-owned banks were started in low-income communities, and “surrounded by a lot of economic challenges that made it hard to succeed,” Bell says, “we flipped that on its head. We think the sky’s the limit for what’s possible.”

Singapore-based Tsao Family Office’s theory of change is anchored by the question, Who would be funding this, if not us? Its chief investment officer Bryan Goh told David, “We’re very careful that we don’t distort things. We’re always thinking, are we replacing capital that would invest in any case?”

💬 Impact Investing Musings

The newest addition to the ImpactAlpha Podcast Network is Impact Investing Musings, produced by AVPN and hosted by Vikas Arora. Arora spoke with the Ford Foundation’s Roy Swan and Christine Looney about aligning a slice of the foundation’s endowment with its philanthropic mission (disclosure: Ford Foundation is an investor in ImpactAlpha).

The Week’s Call

💪 How impact investors are building portfolios for the ‘longevity economy’ (video)

Longer lifespans, coupled with the spending power and productivity of the 50+ crowd, are fueling a “longevity economy.” Impact investors can seize opportunities to support older adults on their journey. ImpactAlpha’s latest Call featured investors building portfolios that view aging as an economic and social asset. Denver-based Next50 is aligning 100% of its $265 million endowment to support healthy and dignified aging and economic opportunities for seniors. “All of us are aging,” said Next50’s Jillian Kelly. “We know that older adults need more resources, but they’re also a really powerful economic force.”

Get in the Game

💼 Step up

  • ImpactAlpha is hiring a data fellow for a remote role.
  • Liberty Mutual Insurance is hiring an impact investing vice president in New York. 
  • The Aspen Institute seeks an operations and impact program associate.
  • Sorenson Impact Institute seeks proposals from impact and inclusion-focused nonprofits that are pursuing mergers, acquisitions and other forms of collaboration to reduce fragmentation and financial stress. The institute is managing a $1 million Collaboration Fund, supported by the Ford and MacArthur foundations, to cover the direct costs of consolidation. Letters of intent are due by June 11.

🤝 Meet up

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