Impact Management
Call Recording | March 31, 2023
Metrics Madness: Wealth, ownership and ‘quality adjusted life years’ (video)
ImpactAlpha, Mar. 31 – The search for a universal metric to guide investments in racial justice and equitable wealth-building was…aspirational. “We are still a …
Metrics Madness | March 28, 2023
Chasing the holy grail of a universal metric for racial equity and wealth-building
ImpactAlpha, Mar. 28 – If the world manages in the coming decades to avert the worst-case climate catastrophe, it will be the result …
Impact Management | March 22, 2023
Metrics and mood music in impact reports from Founders First, Mercy Corps Ventures, Upstart Co-Lab and ALIVE
ImpactAlpha, March 22 – One fund tracks the number of informal-economy jobs its portfolio companies have formalized. Another firm reports how its investments improve …
Impact Management | March 22, 2023
Impact Reporting: Frequently asked questions (and answers!) from impact investors
Impact fund managers are increasingly expected to provide their investors (i.e., institutional investors and allocators) with reporting that offers visibility into their portfolio’s …
Image by Freepik
Impact Management | March 21, 2023
Ten outcomes and three levers for investors in racial and economic equity
ImpactAlpha, March 21 — Moral imperative? The threat of economic instability? Or the unrealized economic potential of our nation’s diversity? Whatever their motivations, …
Metrics Madness | March 20, 2023
Q&A with Napoleon Wallace: Tracking investment theses against the promise of Reconstruction
Napoleon Wallace has a challenge. After decades of developing racial equity and economic development strategies he knows what he is looking for in …
Impact Management | March 20, 2023
Just Capital and Ford Foundation set a research agenda for human capital management
ImpactAlpha, March 20 – As much as 90% of the value of S&P 500 companies comes from “intangible” assets, most importantly talent. Yet …
Impact Investing | March 9, 2023
Eight practices to transform assets under management into resources for an inclusive and sustainable economy
Canadian businesswoman Zita Cobb returned to her hometown on Fogo Island off the coast of Newfoundland and helped remake the isolated former fishing …
ESG | March 3, 2023
ImpactAlpha Deal Spotlight: ESG in private markets
ImpactAlpha, March 3 — Limited partners in venture capital and private equity funds are deemphasizing ESG considerations, according to a survey by Adams …
Impact Management | February 22, 2023
Streamlined, standardized and benchmarked: Optimizing impact data for capital markets
ImpactAlpha, Feb. 22 – It’s the data wonks’ time to shine. With more than $1 trillion in impact investing assets under management, investors are …
Pulled from "Scaling Impact" cover
Impact Voices | February 16, 2023
Six financial paradigm shifts needed to scale impact
Over my 20-plus years as a professional working on economic development, development finance, and impact investing, as both an investor and an advisor, …
Kelly McCarthy
Impact Management | February 8, 2023
Q&A with Kelly McCarthy: Architect of IRIS+ is ready to put impact management theory into practice
ImpactAlpha, Feb. 8 – It’s not yet the holy grail of impact measurement, but IRIS+ has given investors a starting point for comparable …
Impact Management | February 6, 2023
Accounting for impact at Candide, MicroVest, Echoing Green and other investment managers
ImpactAlpha, Feb. 6. 2023 – The age of ad hoc impact reporting may be coming to an end. In the meantime, we’ve taken a …
Frontier and Growth Markets | January 30, 2023
What 672 private debt and equity funds show about impact investing in emerging markets
ImpactAlpha, Jan. 30 – After a pandemic-related pause, institutional investors are again moving money into private impact funds in emerging markets. But only a …
Impact Management | January 25, 2023
To catalyze climate capital, development finance institutions are pressed to ‘publish what you fund’
ImpactAlpha, January 25 – Six trillion dollars. That’s roughly how much is needed annually to fight climate change and meet the U.N.’s Sustainable …
Impact Management | January 9, 2023
Searching for signals in impact reports from Elevar, Veris, Calvert and other investment managers
ImpactAlpha, Jan. 9 – The first mandate of an impact investment fund: Deliver actual impact through its investments. And the corollary: Effectively communicate that …
Policy Corner | December 14, 2022
The case of the suddenly missing trillions in ESG investments
ImpactAlpha, Dec. 14 – It’s an ESG whodunnit. Sustainable investment assets in the U.S. totaled $17.1 trillion in 2020, according to US SIF. …
Impact Voices | December 8, 2022
Tying fund managers’ compensation to impact performance is easier said than done
ImpactAlpha, December 8 – Whether and how impact fund managers should tie a portion of their compensation to the achievement of specific impact …
Muni Impact | December 8, 2022
S&P Global acquires Shades of Green’s climate-risk assessments for bonds
ImpactAlpha, Dec. 8 – Issuers of social, green and other sustainability bonds seek “second-party opinions,” or SPOs, from ratings agencies like S&P Global to …
graph drawing with pencil and bar chart analysis Business concept
Impact Management | December 5, 2022
For comparability’s sake, let’s really move impact measurement from outputs to outcomes
Designing meaningful, appropriate and comparable impact investment performance instruments that do not stop at outputs, but get all the way to outcomes, was …
Institutional Shift | December 5, 2022
ESG is dead? European asset owners in venture capital think differently
The backlash to environmental, social and governance, or ESG, investing is in full swing in the U.S. In Europe, asset owners are to …
Sponsored | November 30, 2022
How shared accountability can increase the social impact of healthcare investing
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 …
SMEs in a learning workshop at Ashesi University in Ghana | Photo by C3.
Catalytic Capital | November 23, 2022
C3 provides catalytic capital to accelerate the deployment of… catalytic capital
ImpactAlpha, November 23 — The Catalytic Capital Consortium, or C3, has awarded nearly $1.4 million in grants to Village Capital, Pacific Community Ventures, …
Climate Finance | November 17, 2022
From carbon counting to carbon accounting: The case for Emissions Liability Management
“There does not yet exist the capacity,” Microsoft’s president, Brad Smith warned at last month’s Breakthrough Energy Summit in Seattle, for almost any …
CapEQ’s Tynesia Boyea-Robinson
Impact Voices | November 16, 2022
A moonshot mindset for social-impact advantage
Editor’s Note: The Social Impact Advantage, the new book from Tynesia Boyea-Robinson of CapEQ, walks readers through a step-by-step process for what it …
New York City housing
Muni Impact | November 14, 2022
Managing social risks and addressing racial inequities in the muni bond market
ImpactAlpha, Nov. 14 – “Elevate and Rise” bonds in Denver. ESG-labeled bonds in Chicago. Social bonds in New York. Cities that issue hundreds of …
Dealflow | November 11, 2022
ImpactAlpha Deal Spotlight: Oversubscribed impact funds
ImpactAlpha, November 11 — In a challenging year for raising capital, impact funds are bucking the trend. Impact-focused climate funds from large private …
Impact Voices | November 3, 2022
Have we reached the tipping point for impact-linked compensation?
ImpactAlpha, November 3 – On a panel I recently moderated at the GIIN Investor Forum, I baited the participants with a statement that I …
Image by diana.grytsku on Freepik
Impact Management | November 1, 2022
Orchard Street’s Social and Environmental Impact Partnership fund secures £90 million
ImpactAlpha, November 2 — U.K.-based commercial real estate investor Orchard Street Investment Management has raised $103.3 million in a first close from investors …
Impact Voices | October 27, 2022
Can’t tell the players without a scorecard: Sorting out ESG, impact and sustainability
The Land of ESG is embroiled in a two-front war. Identifying the combatants and their arguments may help practitioners keep track of the …
Impact Management | October 27, 2022
How private equity can unlock impact alpha with ESG data from portfolio companies
Terms like “small” and “local” have become shorthand for “ethical” – a way for consumers and businesses to signal virtue. Meanwhile, having large …
Impact Management | October 17, 2022
To ESG or not to ESG? Politicization complicates messaging, but trendlines are clear
ImpactAlpha, Oct. 17 – Politicians, or rather, ex-pols, were on the hustings last week with seemingly opposite advice for executives and investors trying to …
Return on Inclusion | October 17, 2022
In tough times, corporate leaders must double down on diversity, equity and inclusion
History has shown that our nation’s most vulnerable workers tend to be hit hardest during economic downturns. During the height of the pandemic, …
Photo by Evisort.
Dealflow | October 14, 2022
ImpactAlpha Deal Spotlight: Impact M&A
ImpactAlpha, October 14 — The year has seen an uptick in impact mergers and acquisitions, including Mirova’s purchase of SunFunder to expand clean …
Impact Management | October 13, 2022
Overheard at the GIIN: As impact investing assets cross $1 trillion, investors eye a larger opportunity
ImpactAlpha, October 13 – Impact investing assets under management surpassed $1 trillion as funds, foundations, development finance agencies and other investors have sought impact …
Dealflow | October 10, 2022
Common Future shifts from investee to investor and takes a stake in SOCAP
ImpactAlpha, Oct, 11 – Common Future, the Oakland-based nonprofit focused on economic inequality, has taken a stake in SOCAP, the venerable impact investing …
QED portfolio company RestLess is fighting ageism in the U.K. Photo: Shutterstock
Impact Voices | October 6, 2022
How venture firm QED Investors is embracing ESG to strengthen its fintech portfolio
As a concept, ESG is nothing new. The idea of explicitly looking at environmental, social and governance issues as a holy trinity of …
Impact Management | October 6, 2022
VCs ♥️ ESG
ImpactAlpha, Oct. 6 – Red state politicians are fanning the flames of an anti-ESG backlash. Venture capitalists are embracing environmental, social and governance …
Impact Management | October 3, 2022
Societe Generale takes a stake, as impact ratings-agency impak raises €4.5 million
ImpactAlpha, Oct. 3 – Ratings by the Montreal and Paris-based impak emphasize the impact of a company’s products and services, not just how …
SunColombia
Impact Management | September 29, 2022
To understand the impact of electrifying schools in Colombia, ALIVE Ventures listens to parents and teachers
At Acumen Latam Impact Ventures (or ALIVE Ventures), one of our solar energy investments has reached over 100,000 beneficiaries with their solar installations …
Image by standret on Freepik
Women Rising | September 26, 2022
African Women Impact Fund secures initial $60 million for gender-lens investments
ImpactAlpha, September 26 — South Africa’s Standard Bank Group and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa are looking to raise $1 billion …
Impact Management | September 13, 2022
Seven ways organizations can foster personal, organizational, and social well-being
We recently engaged a consultant to help us examine and ultimately overhaul our internal governance and decision making systems. One of the exercises …
ESG | September 7, 2022
Dow Jones raises stakes in ESG data competition with news-driven ratings
ImpactAlpha, Sept. 7 – The opinion page of The Wall Street Journal has proudly championed the campaign to discredit environmental, social and governance, or …
Impact Voices | August 25, 2022
Tips for strengthening ESG investing from emerging market fund managers
ImpactAlpha, August 25 – Environmental, social and governance, or ESG, investing is dogged by inconsistent, and sometimes conflicting, reporting criteria and ratings that make …
Frontier and Growth Markets | August 25, 2022
Three lessons impact investors can offer venture capitalists looking for deals in Africa
At the Africa CEO Forum in Abidjan earlier this summer, a striking consensus emerged: Africa is at a new investment crossroads. Venture capital …