Greetings, Agents of Impact!
Featured: ImpactAlpha Original
Agents of Impact Call No. 8: Financial advisors spill their secrets of sustainable investing (audio). Financial advisors are transforming themselves into “agents of impact” to deepen their relationships with existing clients, build their book of business â or stay in business at all. âThis is a retention and recruitment conversation,â Morgan Stanleyâs Noel Pacarro Brown said on ImpactAlphaâs Call No. 8 last week. Nearly 200 subscribers signed up for The Call, which aimed to help advisors eager to start those conversations. State Streetâs Brie Williams said many advisors arenât proactive about speaking with their clients, despite research that suggests half of investors want their advisors to speak with them about investments screened for environmental, social and governance, or ESG, factors. Advisors need to be able to talk both about values-alignment as well as financial returns, said The Investment Integration Projectâs William Burckart, co-author of âFundamentals of Sustainable Investment,â a new guide for advisors. “It is useful to financial advisors to be open to facilitating the conversation either way, or with a mixture of both.â
A frustration for some advisors: continuing resistance from their home offices, which are gatekeepers for the investment products financial advisors can recommend to their clients. Clients are eager to apply to their financial portfolios the same conscious considerations that âsent them to Whole Foods or to Patagonia, said Mark Sloss of Regenerative Investment Strategies. âThis isnât just âa thingâ but a megatrend.â Home offices will find that the pressure from financial advisors and their clients will only get louder, Burckart said. “You are operating at your own risk if you are a home office and not providing those resources.”
Keep reading, âAgents of Impact Call No. 8: Financial advisors spill their secrets of sustainable investing (audio),â by Jessica Pothering on ImpactAlpha, and listen to the audio replay of Agents of Impact Call No. 8.
Dealflow: Follow the Money
Sustainable tilapia farm in Zambia secures $10.5 million loan. Dutch development bank FMO issued the loan to boost Yalelo Tilapiaâs production of sustainable fish. Tilapia, a low-carbon, efficient source of protein that is well-suited to aquaculture production, could have âa transformational effect for the availability and affordability of locally produced protein,â FMO said in a statement. Yaleloâs farm is 30% female-run, employs 800 people and provides training to local smallholder tilapia farmers. FMOâs loan will help the company expand regionally, create an additional 200 jobs and become one of the first operations to Africa to achieve certification for responsible aquaculture by the Aquaculture Stewardship Council. A portion of the loan came from FMOâs infrastructure-focused Building Prospects impact fund. Read on.
GoATL fund backs LIIFâs charter school finance program in Atlanta. The Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta put $1 million into the Low Income Investment Fund to finance charter schools in Atlantaâs lower-income communities. The U.S. Department of Education also provided funding. âThroughout the nation and many parts of metro Atlanta, children of low-income families are attending poorly performing schools,â said Mark Crosswell of the Community Foundation, which has a $10 million impact fund. âAt the same time, mission-driven charter schools canât find the capital to launch in these markets.â LIIF, a national charter-school financier, and redefinED Atlanta, a local education organization, will assess the performance and potential of Atlanta-area schools. More.
Series: Impact en Las Americas
New Ventures is accelerating impact entrepreneurs in Mexico and Latin America (video). Rodrigo Villar and New Ventures Mexico are waking up private investors to Mexican and Latin American startups tackling social and environmental challenges. “The real innovation thatâs going to happen in this region is going to be social,â New Venturesâ Villar told ImpactAlphaâs David Bank at this yearâs Foro Latinoamericano de InversiĂłn de Impacto, or FLII. “The needs are huge so the opportunities, as well, are big.â
- Market building. New Ventures has helped accelerate more than 800 ventures tackling housing, education, health, financial, environmental and energy challenges in the past 15 years. New Ventures has invested in 10 of them through two quasi-equity funds managed by its in-house venture capital firm, Adobe Capital, and exited from two. New Ventures hosts one of the regionâs leading impact investing conferences, FLII, now in its ninth year.
- Working capital. New Venturesâ new tool, Viwala, aims to fill a financing gap for a broader swath of impact ventures. Viwala will make working capital loans of $50,000 to $150,000 and link repayments to revenues. The goal, says Villar, is to be able to finance growing firms with real revenues, but without tech-style exponential growth. âIf you really want to convince the private sector to move into this sector,â says Villar, “then you need a proof of concept.â
Read, âNew Ventures is accelerating impact entrepreneurs in Mexico and Latin America,â by Dennis Price on ImpactAlpha.
- Watch ImpactAlphaâs interview with New Venturesâ Rodrigo Villar. Catch up on the rest of the Impact en Las Americas video series.
Agents of Impact: Follow the Talent
SVX spins out of the MaRS Centre for Impact Investing in Toronto⌠Partners Group is hiring an ESG and sustainability investment professional in Denver⌠âInvesting in forest healthâ and âPutting a price on natureâ are on Stanford Social Innovation Reviewâs Earth Day reading list⌠The SEED conference, which aims to expand the seed stage of the social impact ecosystem, reconvenes in San Francisco, May 20-21. ImpactAlpha subscribers can register with the code âSEEDPromoPartnerâ for a 30% discount.
— April 23, 2019.