The Brief

The Brief: Founding principles for impact investors on the USA’s 250th birthday

ImpactAlpha · July 2, 2026

Greetings, Agents of Impact!

In today’s Brief:

Founding principles for impact investors for this 4th of July
Catalyst Fund’s $30 million for African climate innovation
Scaling solar energy in South Africa

Featured: USA at 250

Agents of Impact on investing in democracy, shared prosperity and the American Dream. A sense of unease pervades the US bisesquicentennial. Rising costs and a widening wealth gap have left many families struggling. America’s global leadership has eroded. And political polarization is precluding progress. The share of Americans who say they are extremely or very proud is at a 25-year low, according to Gallup. For Agents of Impact, the anniversary is an invitation to ask what it takes to renew the American experiment. In a series of guest posts and personal essays, Antony Bugg-Levine, Santhosh Ramdoss, Stacey Faella and Napoleon Wallace argue that America’s next chapter will be shaped, in part, by how capital is invested to build a more prosperous, resilient and democratic economy.

Antony Bugg-Levine: Following in the footsteps of America’s founding financier. Antony Bugg-Levine, an immigrant, is feeling more patriotic than ever. In his latest “Investing in America” column, the ImpactAlpha contributing editor and author of the forthcoming book by the same name, argues that America’s promise has always been renewed by people who expand opportunities where markets fall short. “My patriotism does not come from believing the country has already become what it aspires to be,” he writes. “It comes from watching thousands of Americans devote their lives to helping it get there.” Drawing inspiration from Benjamin Franklin, who established revolving loan funds to help young tradespeople become business owners, Bugg-Levine sees today’s impact investors carrying forward that tradition by bringing fair financing to overlooked communities and helping workers buy businesses, families buy homes, entrepreneurs start companies, and communities build lasting prosperity. This July 4th, he asks us to remember that “this kind of community-building investment is part of our creation story.” Read Antony’s full post.
Stacey Faella: Investing… to strengthen democracy. Expanding the ownership economy can “seed the conditions for a stronger democracy,” argues the Woodcock Foundation’s Stacey Faella. Drawing on research linking economic inequality to democratic backsliding, Faella says that impact investors should view home ownership, employee ownership and shared ownership models as long-term investments in civic resilience. “Ownership redistributes power and increases economic security, thereby strengthening democracy,” she explains (see also, “Investing in the economic determinants of a healthy democracy”). Faella cites Dearfield Fund’s down-payment assistance for Black homebuyers in Denver (an initiative of Gary Community Ventures); Baltimore’s Prospera affordable homeownership initiative; and resident-owned mobile-home communities financed by the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund, all of which she says pair wealth creation with community engagement. (Disclosure: Woodcock Foundation is a founding partner of Impact LP, ImpactAlpha’s platform for asset owners for whom LP stands for “leadership potential”.) Read Stacey’s full post.

Santhosh Ramdoss: Life, liberty and a share of the upside. Before Thomas Jefferson enshrined the right to the “pursuit of happiness” in the Declaration of Independence in 1776, John Locke argued that governments exist to protect life, liberty and property. “The American Dream was an ownership dream from the very first draft, before the language got softened and the stake got withheld,” writes Gary Community Ventures’ Santhosh Ramdoss in a personal essay on the promise of the American experiment through the eyes of a naturalized US citizen. As today’s wealth gap widens, impact investors are building pathways to broader ownership for every American through a range of tools, including through Gary Community Ventures’ work, as well as efforts at the Aspen Institute’s Financial Security Program, the Unlock Ownership Fund and others (disclosure: Gary Community Ventures is a founding partner of Impact LP). As AI reshapes work and wealth, says Ramdoss, “we have the tools to give that dream back to everyone now.” What that dream always meant, he adds, “was life, liberty, and an actual share of the upside.” Read Santhosh’s full post.
Napoleon Wallace: Modern accounting for a modern economy. On America’s birthday, American capitalism remains “stuck in a state of perpetual adolescence,” because companies can still profit by shifting costs to workers, communities and the environment, argues contributing editor Napoleon Wallace, co-founder of Partners in Equity and Activest, and subject of ImpactAlpha’s award-winning documentary short “Equity and ownership.” The solution is better impact accounting, says Wallace. Just as standardized financial reporting became essential to modern capital markets, measuring and pricing companies’ real-world impact can help investors allocate capital more productively and strengthen the broader economy. “At 250, the economy that Adam Smith described doesn’t need to be replaced, but it does need to grow up,” writes Wallace. “It needs to finally count the full cost of what it produces and stop mistaking unpaid bills for profit.” Read Napoleon’s full post.

Dealflow: Climate Innovation

Sneak peek: Catalyst Fund raises $30 million to derisk African climate tech for global use. Climate adaptation solutions are as essential as mitigation solutions, as last week’s extreme heatwave in Europe made clear. “Adaptation and resilience have never been more front and center in the climate conversation. People are realizing the urgency,” said Maelis Carraro of Catalyst Fund, an Africa-focused adaptation tech fund. Her firm this week closed $30 million for its first fund to support and de-risk early-stage climate innovations in Africa. The fund, which launched in 2022, is structured for generous de-risking to encourage commercial investors to invest, and also offers generous hands-on support to portfolio companies proving their technologies and commercialization potential. Its interim close drew participation from the International Finance Corp., African agriculture-focused FASA, the Shell and Trafigura foundations, Speedinvest, BlinkCV and high net-worth individuals. FSD Africa and Cisco Foundation are Catalyst’s anchor investors. The fundraising goal is $40 million.

From Africa for everyone. Adaptation finance amounts to just $64 billion of $2 trillion in annual global climate finance commitments. At London Climate Action Week last month, Carraro took note of investors’ recognition that relevant climate innovations are increasingly coming out of African markets and other emerging economies. One Catalyst portfolio company, the Nairobi-based direct air capture startup Octavia Carbon, was one of 16 winners announced last week from Tencent’s CarbonX program. Octavia’s team said the award was “one of the most significant endorsements yet of [Kenya’s] emergence as a global direct air capture hub.” (See, “African leaders want a bigger slice of a bigger market for voluntary carbon credits“.) Added Carraro, “It tells you that these solutions have global impact.”

Risk awareness. Catalyst was born out of BFA Global’s impact accelerator program to plug an equity gap for promising climate adaptation innovations. Carraro said investors have a greater understanding today of the blended finance and technical assistance required for new climate innovations to succeed. “It was a lot harder to explain a couple years ago. It’s now more understood that these solutions are not just critically underfunded, they’re critically under-supported,” she said. Investors are carving out separate funding streams for technical assistance, she added. “There’s more innovation in the funding landscape.”
Get the full story, available after 9am ET / 6am PT.

Maia Capital’s impact debt fund invests in solar energy adoption in South Africa. South Africa-based Maia Capital invests in companies providing healthcare, social infrastructure, housing, clean energy and employment pathways to rebalance opportunity and wealth gaps caused by South Africa’s racist apartheid regime. Its latest deal is 150 million South African rand ($9.2 million) in mezzanine debt financing for Nesa Power, a commercial and industrial solar and battery storage developer. South Africa, a coal-dependent country, has long grappled with inconsistent power supplies, which is driving households and businesses to distributed renewable alternatives. “Transactions such as these are important not only for Nesa Power, but for the broader South African economy,” said Nesa’s Israel Skosana II. “They demonstrate what can be achieved when ambitious businesses, committed management teams and long-term capital partners work together to invest in productive infrastructure and sustainable growth.” Funding for Nesa came from Maia’s 10-year impact debt fund – its first – which closed in 2024 with more than one billion rand and backing from South African pension funds.

Read on.

Dealflow overflow. Investment news crossing our desks:

The DC Green Bank provided a $4.2 million loan to electrify a co-living community for students, located near the HBCU Howard University in Washington, DC. (DC Green Bank)

FSD Africa Investment closed a $1.3 million investment for Iungo Capital, a mezzanine investor in small businesses in East Africa. The investment was made from FSDAi’s Nyala facility. (FSD Africa Investment)
Impact-first investor A to Z Impact backed AgDevCo, an agribusiness investor that focuses on Africa. (A to Z Impact)

Agents of Impact: Follow the Talent

The Nature Development Company seeks a natural capital investment director… TAIT is hiring a senior sustainability and ESG coordinator… Santander Alternative Investments is recruiting a venture capital director for deep tech or climate investments… Visa is on the hunt for a senior manager of social impact… Atlantica Sustainable Infrastructure has an opening for asset manager… Legal & General is on the hunt for an associate of responsible investment… Pangea is hiring a private debt portfolio manager for its energy transition fund… Nigeria’s Bank of Industry appoints Kuramo Capital as fund manager for its DICE fund of funds.