On this week’s podcast, host Monique Aiken checks in with FullCycle’s Stephan Nicoleau, back from the climate summit in Glasgow. Plus, the headlines.
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Four principles to help catalytic investors optimize allocations and scale impact. Development finance institutions are under increasing pressure to play a "catalytic" role in financing for climate solutions and development priorities in emerging markets (see, for example, “To catalyze climate capital, development finance institutions are pressed to ‘publish what you fund’”). To do so, the semi-public entities face the difficult task of deploying the right type capital, for the right amount of time, with the right partners, to “crowd in” commercial investors. “If catalytic capital providers stick around too long, we can hamper the development of a sustainable ecosystem,” writes Ward Nusselder of Dutch development bank FMO in the final installment of ImpactAlpha’s “Scaling Impact” series with C3, the Catalytic Capital Consortium. “It is crucial to reduce catalytic funding as soon as feasible.”
How the Educational Resources Impact Fund is supporting quality instruction in schools. The pandemic wiped away decades of learning progress, widening inequities for the most vulnerable students in the U.S. “High-quality instructional material is the equalizer we need to ensure learning acceleration,” says Lin Johnson III of Maycomb Capital, which manages the Educational Resources Impact Fund. In ImpactAlpha’s series with Mission Investors Exchange, Johnson speaks with Susie Lee and Renee Blahuta of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, one of ERIF's philanthropic backers, about using flexible financing to enable educational institutions to narrow achievement gaps and build inclusive learning environments. Shares Lee, “ERIF was created to fill capital gaps that seemed to be holding back organizations that work in this space from growth and scale.”
Jonathan Rose Companies eyes $750 million for its sixth affordable housing fund. The New York-based real estate firm has been a pioneer in creating and preserving green affordable housing for more than three decades. The company works with social service providers to embed educational, workforce development and health services in what it calls “communities of opportunity” (listen to ImpactAlpha’s podcast, “Jonathan Rose on building green, affordable communities of opportunity”). Its sixth Preservation Fund is targeting $500 million to $750 million to address the chronic shortage of affordable housing in the U.S. "There is not a single county in America where a parent with a child working a full-time minimum wage job can afford to rent an apartment,” Jonathan Rose told ImpactAlpha. “Our affordable housing Preservation Funds partner with investors who want not only to help preserve the too-small supply of existing affordable housing, but also to grow it.”
As India’s impact ventures grow, so does the need for growth-stage impact capital. India’s impact investing market has witnessed tremendous growth, with investments reaching $7 billion in 2021. Beyond financial services and inclusion, the market includes more social enterprises and investment opportunities in agriculture, technology for good, healthcare, education and livelihoods. Renewable energy, including battery storage, green hydrogen and offshore wind, is particularly ripe for investment. The gap in the market: growth-stage capital from impact funds. “Impact investors have traditionally led funding rounds for early-stage impact enterprises in India, while commercial investors have provided later-stage funding,” write Ramraj Pai, Vedant Batra and Rishi Dewan of India’s Impact Investors Council in a guest post. “Impact funds, too, can finance the transition of impact enterprises beyond early venture funding.”
CrossBoundary’s Habib El Magrissy joins the U.S. International Development Finance Corp. as an Africa investment advisor. The DFC is recruiting an international loan portfolio specialist and a development policy monitoring and clearance manager in Washington, D.C… Open Road Alliance seeks an investment officer… Two Sigma Impact is looking for an investment associate in Portland.
ImpactAlpha, Nov. 18 – Cities around the U.S. are raising low-cost capital in the municipal bond markets by highlighting intentional efforts to address long-standing …
ImpactAlpha, September 30 – Capital to support women’s economic growth and financial inclusion is flowing – finally! – in many advanced economies. In emerging …
ImpactAlpha, Sept. 19 – Investors, entrepreneurs, corporate executives and world leaders have descended on New York for Climate Week, the annual gathering alongside the …
ImpactAlpha, June 27 – ImpactAlpha’s spring season of Agents of Impact Calls spanned a period of tumult in the financial markets: instability in …
ImpactAlpha, June 3 – Just as investment in financial inclusion in Africa was really ramping up, a market downturn threatens to slow progress. Or …
ImpactAlpha, May 13 – One defining outcome of the pandemic: a boom in entrepreneurship. A record five million businesses were started in the …
ImpactAlpha, April 22 – The Ukraine crisis risks tipping up to 1.7 billion people — over one-fifth of humanity — into poverty, destitution …
ImpactAlpha, Apr. 1 – High-impact investments in fragile countries invariably entail political risk. And impact investments in a free press, humanitarian tech, financial inclusion …
ImpactAlpha, Mar. 11 – It’s one thing for a corporation to set environmental or social goals. It’s another to shift executives, employees and supply …
ImpactAlpha, Feb. 25 – Bottom-up policies for access to capital in divested communities. Top-down strategies to reshape capitalism to work for all stakeholders. “We …
ImpactAlpha, Feb. 11 – ”$100 a ton?” exclaimed CDP’s Paula DiPerna on ImpactAlpha’s Agents of Impact Call this week. “I should be popping champagne.” …
‘Tis the season for our lookaheads to 2022 and, thanks to ImpactAlpha subscribers, we are able to make the roundups freely available. So …
Development finance institutions are essential to the mobilization of capital to slow climate change and to meet the Sustainable Development Goals. So why …
ImpactAlpha, Jan. 20 – Building wealth for women and people of color is about numbers as well as equity. By mid-century, there will be …
The historic buildout of low-carbon and sustainable infrastructure is on. Spurring this climate action is hundreds of billions in federal spending in the …
Host Brian Walsh is joined by Kristin Hull of Nia Impact Capital, a long-time Tesla investor who says Elon Musk’s Twitter escapades threaten …
ImpactAlpha, Dec. 13 – Talk about catalytic capital. With a fresh $100 billion in funding from the Inflation Reduction Act boosting its financing capacity …
Host Monique Aiken has the headlines and David talks with Aisha Weeks of the Dearfield Fund for Black Wealth about narrowing the racial …
ImpactAlpha, Dec. 2 – Back in 1931, Winston Churchill predicted we’d grow real meat without the animals. Last month, the U.S. Food and Drug …
Host Brian Walsh catches up with Common Trust’s Zoe Schlag, who is taking aim at U.S. wealth gaps by helping employees become owners …
Between the true believers in investing for impact and those that, for whatever reason, have their heels dug in, there are the “quietly …
ImpactAlpha, November 21 – Bahiyah Yasmeen Robinson is nearly one-third of the way toward her goal of seeding 100 women and historically underrepresented fund …
Amy Cortese catches up with FullCycle’s Stephan Nicoleau who is at COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, to talk methane, governance and catalytic …
Host Brian Walsh is joined by Steven Rothstein, managing director of the Ceres Accelerator for Sustainable Capital Markets, to chat about how climate …
Despite the good intentions and creative strategies of impact investors, extreme wealth inequity persists. The climate crisis will only deepen the divide, unless …
Scores of anti-ESG bills were introduced in Republican-led states in January. The onslaught continues despite the more than $1.1 billion in financial costs …
Editor’s note: This article is sponsored by Johnson & Johnson Impact Ventures, which supports ImpactAlpha’s Investing in Health coverage. In partnership with J&J Impact Ventures, ImpactAlpha is exploring the …
The past year has been one of both exciting growth and unexpected challenges for the impact investing industry. Amid an uncertain macroeconomic forecast …
The attorney general of Texas earlier this month accused Citigroup of running afoul of a state law that “bars most government contracts with …
Editor’s note: This blog is part of ImpactAlpha’s “Scaling Impact” series, authored by participants in the Catalytic Capital Consortium (C3) Scaling Learning Labs. Key insights …
Ghana securitized an education tax to improve access to education and a petrol tax to pay off legacy debts in the banking sector. …
There are many important metrics that can be used to measure a company’s impact. But none are more important than the company’s and …
Editor’s note: This blog is part of ImpactAlpha’s “Scaling Impact” series, authored by participants in the Catalytic Capital Consortium (C3) Scaling Learning Labs. Key insights …
Overcoming today’s global challenges and creating positive change requires collaboration and innovative solutions from every sector and corner of society to enable all …
You and me baby, we’re nothing but animals trying to deny our preternatural reuse instincts by confining ourselves to linear economy rules. And …
Progress is as much about implementation as it is about invention. I wish I could lay claim to these profound words. They were …
ImpactAlpha, January 27 – Gary Forster left his job in logistics at Procter & Gamble to volunteer in Zambia, inspired by the 2005 …
ImpactAlpha, Jan. 20 – Building wealth for women and people of color is about numbers as well as equity. By mid-century, there will be …
ImpactAlpha, Jan. 13 – A small-business lender in the Mississippi delta. A microfinance bank in Uganda. A global development finance institution in London. Laurie …
ImpactAlpha, Dec. 16 – Napoleon Wallace’s presence was all over the recent Mission Investors Exchange conference in Baltimore. …As the co-founder of Activest, which …
“I love complexity,” says Berlow, founder of Vibrant Data Labs, a “social impact data science” group. An ecologist and data nerd, Berlow spent …
ImpactAlpha, Dec. 2 – Back in 1931, Winston Churchill predicted we’d grow real meat without the animals. Last month, the U.S. Food and Drug …
ImpactAlpha, Nov. 4 – Barbados is an island nation of just 166 square miles and less than 300,000 inhabitants. But its leader, Mia …
Blake Jones is “a cooperative geek.” After co-founding four co-op enterprises, including Namaste Solar and Clean Energy Credit Union, he has brought the …
ImpactAlpha, October 7 – Regina Kline has seen the state of labor and employment for disabled Americans up close, as a lawyer representing workers …
ImpactAlpha, September 23 – Women are hot… investments. So declared ImpactAlpha back in 2014, when we used quote marks for investors unfamiliar with “gender …
Within the next few weeks, if everything goes according to plan, the first customers will make deposits in New Hampshire-based Walden Mutual Bank, …
ImpactAlpha, August 5 – In the roller coaster climate bill negotiations with West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, Brandon Dennison brought something to the table …
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