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Catalytic Capital | Amy Cortese
Blended finance rebounds in 2023 with focus on climate and bigger deals

Blended finance is back.  The use of catalytic capital to de-risk renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, small business lending and health and education in …

Latin America | Dennis Price
In Puerto Rico, mobilizing billions for economic mobility with capital from across the spectrum
economic mobility puerto rico
ImpactAlpha Latin America | Dennis Price
ImpactAlpha Latin America: Turning disaster into revival in Puerto Rico
ImpactAlpha Latin America Puerto Rico
Latin America | Manuela Jiménez López
Latin American family offices add investing tools to philanthropic toolkit
Latin American family offices impact
Latin America | David Bank
These impact investors are finding opportunities and doing deals in Latin America (videos)
impact deals Latin America

Dealflow

Latest impact investments and fundraises

The Brief

Read by thousands of impact pros daily

April 30, 2024 | ImpactAlpha
The Brief: Puerto Rico’s inclusive economic revival

Greetings, Agents of Impact, and welcome to all of the new subscribers who signed up during our 10th anniversary celebration. The third edition …

Today’s brief

Featured: Impact in Latin America

In Puerto Rico, mobilizing billions for economic mobility with capital from across the spectrum. Puerto Rico has a window in which to turn disaster recovery into economic revival. “We didn’t choose it, but this is our time,” declares Eduardo Carrera, founder of Platform for Social Impact, which aims to steer capital to Puerto Rico’s social infrastructure. In front of hundreds of social innovators and financial engineers in downtown San Juan earlier this month, Carrera unveiled a clock that is counting down to a 10-year deadline for progress. The urgency is a response to the frustration over the Caribbean island’s lingering economic woes years after Hurricane Maria and other disasters. Some $85 billion in US federal aid and recovery funds remain on the sidelines, even as nearly 60% of children live in poverty. Many proponents of a Puerto Rico with good jobs, safe neighborhoods and strong role models, Carrera says “have left intentionality to chance.” At the Platform for Social Impact’s Nexa Summit, Carrera laid out an economic agenda that centers children to end intergenerational poverty. “When children bloom, everybody benefits,” he says.

Dealflow: Social Lending

RSF Social Finance adds trio of ‘high-impact social enterprises’ to its loan portfolio. The San Francisco-based fund manager drew capital from a social investment fund to allocate a combined $5.5 million to three organizations supporting alternative ownership, climate and the environment, and natural products, said RSF’s Michael Jones. RSF provided a $3 million loan to Cambridge, Mass.-based Sunwealth for a portfolio of solar installations in California, Maine and New Jersey. The solar projects are projected to save about $11 million in lifetime energy costs and to create more than 100 green jobs. Sunwealth, RSF’s biggest borrower with $13 million, is raising a $60 million solar justice fund for local solar developers and installers of rooftop and parking lot projects. In a separate deal, RSF purchased $1.5 million of a $2.5 million revolving line of credit from Walden Savings Bank on behalf of 88 Acres. 88Acres will use the loan to deliver on a contract with Delta Airlines for zero-waste, health-conscious snack bars. 

Impact Voices: Beyond Philanthropy

Latin American family offices add investing tools to their philanthropic toolkits. The Gerdau Johannpeter family in Brazil has allocated 20% ​​of the family fund to impact investments. In Colombia, the Sesana family has created Asiri, an impact fund manager with investments in renewable energy, financial inclusion and agricultural technology. The Sánchez Navarro family in Mexico has complemented its traditional philanthropic approach with impact investments (Felipe Fernández Sánchez is a co-founder of CO_Capital). “The experiences of these family offices in the region strengthen the hypothesis that impact investing, far from replacing philanthropy, seeks to strengthen and complement it,” Latimpacto’s Manuela Jiménez López writes in a guest post. Three-quarters of Latin American organizations that prioritize impact also sought financial returns on their investments, according to a Latimpacto survey.

Agents of Impact: Follow the Talent

Ayah Abulghanam, previously with USAID, joins Mercy Corps Ventures as a program officer… Radhika Fox, previously with the US Environmental Protection Agency, is joining the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s impact investments team as a strategic advisor… Dalberg promotes James Eustace to partner and Europe regional director… New York Community Trust is on the hunt for an arts and culture and historic preservation program officer… New York City Economic Development Corp. seeks an assistant vice president. 

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