Muni Impact
Investors, issuers and communities are leveraging municipal bond markets to disrupt systemic inequities. ImpactAlpha is featuring these stories with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Features
Pro Mujer CEO Carmen Correa with a client | Photo credit: Pro Mujer
Gender Smart | August 21, 2023
With gender bonds, Pro Mujer puts Argentina’s capital markets to work for female entrepreneurs
ImpactAlpha, Aug. 21 – The amounts are small, but the implications could be profound. When micro lender Pro Mujer earlier this year distributed …
Green Infrastructure | August 8, 2023
Hybar snags $700 million in debt and equity for recycled steel plant in Arkansas
ImpactAlpha, Aug 8 – Electric vehicle, battery and chip factories are rising in the US south and midwest. Hybar’s planned mill in Osceola, …
Saint Augustine's College in Raleigh, NC
Muni Impact | July 20, 2023
Social returns on investments in HBCUs rise as affirmative action recedes
ImpactAlpha, July 20 – Historically Black colleges and universities may represent the ultimate social impact investment. But instead of enjoying a social-benefit premium, many …
Muni Impact | June 22, 2023
Connecting supply and demand for racial equity strategies in muni markets (video)
ImpactAlpha, Jun. 22 – Even as some politicians ramp up anti-ESG rhetoric, asset owners and allocators are signaling an appetite for investment strategies …
Personal Finance | June 14, 2023
Targeting solutions with impact ETFs, ‘cut carbon notes’ and other new investment products
ImpactAlpha, Jun. 14 – A new family of exchange-traded funds will align around companies that derive the bulk of their revenues from solutions for …
Muni Impact | June 8, 2023
How ‘racial equity audits’ could mitigate risks in municipal bond markets
ImpactAlpha, Jun. 8 – Sunlight is often the best disinfectant. In the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd in 2020, a simple tool …
Chicago, Illinois
Muni Impact | May 3, 2023
New crop of muni-bond investors helps Chicago fund equitable COVID recovery
This story was originally published by Next City as part of The Bottom Line, a newsletter exploring scalable solutions to advance affordability, inclusive economic growth and access …
Muni Impact | April 6, 2023
Mass migration, stranded communities and ‘chronic’ climate disruptions challenge the muni market
ImpactAlpha, April 6 – The municipal bond market has barely begun to grapple with the risks posed by climate change, despite an escalating …
Photo by Amritanshu Sikdar on Unsplash
Water | March 23, 2023
Putting a ‘price on water’ and other opportunities to address the H2O crisis
ImpactAlpha, Mar. 23 – In financial markets, water is becoming the new carbon. From early stage startups and corporate supply chains to public policy …
Kalamazoo, Michigan
Muni Impact | March 1, 2023
The winding road to ESG standards in the municipal bond market
ImpactAlpha, Feb. 29 – In October 2021, a paper manufacturer in Kalamazoo, Michigan, issued $100 million of what it called “green bonds” through …
Memphis skyline
Muni Impact | February 9, 2023
Engaging racial-equity risks and opportunities in municipal finance (video)
ImpactAlpha, Feb. 9 – The fatal beating by police of Tyre Nichols in Memphis last month exposed risks to the city’s finances that have …
Muni Impact | February 9, 2023
Munis 101: Players, capital flows and mechanics in the $4 trillion municipal-bond market
ImpactAlpha, Feb. 9 – Municipal bonds have been called the original impact investments, the source of much needed capital for highways, bridges, schools and …
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 …
Roadmap of Memphis, Tennessee
Muni Impact | January 31, 2023
Activest’s FIRE strategy seeks to bend the arc of municipal finance toward ‘fiscal justice’
ImpactAlpha, Jan. 31 – It’s distressingly easy to find places where city finances are distorted by systemic racism or outright bigotry. It’s harder …
Eric Glass
Muni Impact | January 24, 2023
‘You can’t do impact on a passive basis’: Q&A with activist muni-investor Eric Glass
ImpactAlpha, Jan. 24 – After 15 years as an analyst, trader, and portfolio manager at AllianceBernstein, Eric Glass was asked in 2015 to develop …
John Podesta, Senior Advisor to the President for Clean Energy (photo: ImpactAlpha)
Muni Impact | January 17, 2023
Overheard at the Public Finance Conference: Investment opportunities in Emerging Market America
ImpactAlpha, Jan. 17 – A computer glitch that snarled air traffic last week presented a fitting backdrop as government and finance leaders gathered …
Muni Impact | January 12, 2023
The billion-dollar cost to the ESG culture wars
ImpactAlpha, Jan. 12 – Banks that use environmental, social, or governance, or ESG frameworks in their investing practice are being targeted by state legislators …
Climate-proofing infrastructure in West Virginia | Credit: Popular Science
Climate Finance | January 10, 2023
Matching local projects with climate capital to deploy community infrastructure
ImpactAlpha, Jan. 10 – The Great Deployment is on. The capital is teed up. The technology is ready. The Inflation Reduction Act and …
Looking Ahead to 2023 | December 21, 2022
Abundance, ownership and inclusion hold keys to shared prosperity in 2023
ImpactAlpha, Dec. 21 – Real solutions. Real revenues. Real places. While other investors chased crypto and other tech fads, inclusive investors were finding …
Memphis, TN | Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on Unsplash
Muni Impact | December 12, 2022
What Adasina learned about advancing ‘fiscal justice’ by investing $60 million in muni bonds
ImpactAlpha, Dec. 12 – San Francisco-based Adasina Social Capital calls itself a “bridge between financial markets and social justice.” But even an organization accustomed …
Muni Impact | December 12, 2022
Cities embrace ESG in muni bonds even as overall market dips
ImpactAlpha, Dec. 12 – Municipal bond issues are down 17% this year compared to 2021 as interest rates have spiked, according to SIFMA. But …
Photo by Tamarcus Brown on Unsplash
Muni Impact | November 18, 2022
Mispriced risks, investor demand and community power center racial equity in municipal bonds (video)
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 …
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 …
Muni Impact | November 9, 2022
The ‘Black Tax’ plagues small municipalities. Can bond banks help?
ImpactAlpha, Nov. 9 – An old idea is finding new life in the municipal bond market, where a stubborn complacency with conventional ways of …
Muni Impact | September 14, 2022
To manage climate risk, municipal bond insurer taps data on community vulnerability
ImpactAlpha, Sept. 14 – Public finance investors buy hundreds of billions of dollars in municipal bond issuances each year, providing much needed capital for …
The Inner Loop East being filled in. | Photo source: Stantec
Muni Impact | August 31, 2022
Tear down this road: Cities start to remove highways that divide and disadvantage communities
ImpactAlpha, Aug. 31 – Tearing down part of a freeway was such a boon that Rochester, New York, is planning for removal of more …
Policy Corner | August 10, 2022
“Green Bank” in climate bill to provide catalytic capital for renewable energy and community resilience
ImpactAlpha, Aug. 10 – It’s not the national green bank that advocates have pushed for more than a decade. But the $27 billion …
Return on Inclusion | June 2, 2022
Catalyzing capital and sizing solutions to homelessness: A blueprint for Los Angeles
(Editor’s note: This story is being co-published with The Giving List.) ImpactAlpha, June 2 – As a parting challenge to his successor, outgoing …
Athens, Georgia
Community Finance | March 3, 2022
Social bonds direct proceeds to racial equity as the “S” gains prominence in ESG
When it comes to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices, the “S” has long been viewed as the more complicated piece of the …
Photo credit: AP Photo/Noah Berger.
Climate Finance | September 21, 2021
‘Forest resilience bonds’ show an ounce of prevention can slow wildfires – and provide 4% returns
ImpactAlpha, September 21 — In a corner of the Tahoe National Forest in California that has escaped this year’s devastating wildfires, crews have …
Policy Corner | January 11, 2021
Biden’s nominee for secretary of labor is a champion of ESG investing in Boston
ImpactAlpha, January 11 – The Department of Labor in the Trump administration has issued a series of rules hostile to consideration of environmental, social …
Features | September 22, 2020
Changing the investment algorithm to advance racial justice
ImpactAlpha, Sept. 22 – It’s time to recode market systems that generate racial injustice. Last month’s Agents of Impact Call joined two conversations …
Features | August 27, 2020
Call No. 22: Rooting out racism as a systemic risk
ImpactAlpha, Aug. 27 – Investors have been talking about systemic risks at least since the Great Financial Crisis of 2008. More recently, climate …
Institutional Shift | April 23, 2020
Countries and companies tap fixed-income market with ‘social bonds’ for COVID relief
ImpactAlpha, Apr. 23 – Governments are not the only source of quick liquidity in the COVID crisis. Countries and corporations are tapping a growing …
Innovative Finance | February 27, 2020
Waste reduction bonds can make green bonds greener
ImpactAlpha, Feb. 27 – One person’s garbage patch may be another’s opportunity. That’s the message of Future of Waste from UBS Global Wealth …
Features | April 18, 2019
Sexy impact munis, Acumen’s off-grid energy fund, rural childcare, alt-credit in the UK, flexible Opportunity Zone regulations
Greetings, Agents of Impact! Featured: Returns on investment podcast Impact investors start to make stodgy municipal bonds sexy (podcast). Hidden within the $3.8 …
Features | April 11, 2019
Risk, adjusted: BlackRock and Mercer signal the repricing of climate risk
ImpactAlpha, April 11 – Investors’ portfolios may get a jolt from a sudden “repricing event” that recalibrates the risks of climate change, according …
Conservation | December 3, 2018
Tapping the municipal bond market for distributed green infrastructure
Boring is exciting in the $3.8 trillion municipal bond market. Last month’s $61.4 million oversubscribed issue from the Industrial Development Authority of Pinal …
Beats | October 3, 2018
Reinvestment Fund taps capital market to raise $76 million for ‘impact investment bond’
Public bond markets are becoming a reliable new source of capital for community development financial institutions that lend to low-income communities. A successful …
Features | June 13, 2018
Neighborly’s muni-bond impact, JUST exchange-traded fund, immigrant auto insurance, India’s civic tech startups
Greetings, ImpactAlpha readers! Featured: New Revivalists Putting the power of public finance back into the hands of civic visionaries. Municipal bonds are literally …
Features | June 13, 2018
Neighborly Q&A: Returning the power of public finance to civic visionaries
ImpactAlpha, June 12 – Municipal bonds are literally private investments in public goods, making them perhaps the original impact investments. About $435 billion in …
Features | January 11, 2018
Bond investors are getting smarter about flood risks
In November, credit rating agency Moody’s warned cities and states that failing to address climate risks could hurt their bond ratings, potentially affecting …
Impact Voices
The Lunkenheimer Valve Co in Cincinnati | Photo credit: The Port / FB
Muni Impact | June 29, 2023
Cincinnati ‘jobs bond’ aims to fuel manufacturing boom in the Midwest
If you build it they will come. An innovative bond issuance will help a public agency in the city of Cincinnati acquire and …
Creative Economy | April 21, 2023
How cultural impact bonds can finance creative sectors to drive economic growth
The cultural and creative sectors are a key driver of global growth and an essential component of smart cities. Culture impact bonds could …
Muni Impact | January 24, 2023
Market hypocrisy, political opportunism, and the common good
The attorney general of Texas earlier this month accused Citigroup of running afoul of a state law that “bars most government contracts with …
Sponsored | December 15, 2022
How impact investments are helping build healthy communities
Our zip codes play a big part in how long and well we live. It’s easier to lead a healthy life when you …
Impact Voices | August 18, 2022
How community investors are creating equitable approaches to climate finance
When it comes to climate change the stakes for all of us are high. But the evidence is clear that lower-income and communities …
Baymiller Row Houses in Cincinnati. Photo: The Port
Muni Impact | July 25, 2022
How ‘The Port’ is drawing private investors to redress Cincinnati’s racial wealth gap
Driving through Cincinnati, Ohio’s Bond Hill neighborhood, Tony Jones pointed out the street his grandmother used to live on, and the corner where …
Impact Voices | May 11, 2022
Fixed-income and municipal-bond strategies for direct climate impact
Investors are pouring money into environmental, social & governance and green bonds. Green bond issuance alone is expected to reach up to $1 …
(left to right) Eugene Cornelius (Milken Institute), Kweilin Ellingrud (McKinsey) and Kimberley Reid (Future Fund Management Agency) at Milken Global Conference 2022 | Photo credit: Milken Institute
Capitalism Reimagined | May 5, 2022
Overheard at the Milken Global Conference: Mission and margins
How to understand and harness the recent influx of capital into ESG products was the conversation at the center of this week’s 25th …
Locavesting | December 2, 2021
How municipal impact investing can improve quality of life for historically excluded communities
Impact investing, which seeks to make a direct—and measurable—social or environmental impact while generating a financial return, has historically been synonymous with the …
Photo credit: Shutter.B
The Reconstruction | November 18, 2021
How impact investors can leverage the infrastructure bill to help disinvested communities catch up
After years of discussion, negotiation, failed efforts, and disappointment, we finally have a once-in-a-generation bill that will invest in the physical infrastructure of …
Dealflow
Photo credit: UH Manoa
Dealflow | September 18, 2023
$171 million bond for affordable student housing in Hawaii
Editor’s note: ImpactAlpha has partnered with HIP Investor to highlight upcoming bond issues with social and/or environmental significance. Disclaimer: Nothing in this post or on …
Muni Impact | September 11, 2023
Michigan issues $1.2 billion in bonds to rebuild roads and bridges
Editor’s note: ImpactAlpha has partnered with HIP Investor to highlight upcoming bond issues with social and/or environmental significance. Disclaimer: Nothing in this post or on …
Impact Muni Bonds | August 29, 2023
Wisconsin agency issues $185 million social bond for affordable homeownership
Editor’s note: ImpactAlpha has partnered with HIP Investor to highlight upcoming bond issues with social and/or environmental significance. Disclaimer: Nothing in this post or on …
Long Island, NY
Impact Muni Bonds | August 16, 2023
Long Island’s $400 million green bond to finance climate-resilient upgrades to the grid
Editor’s note: ImpactAlpha has partnered with HIP Investor to highlight upcoming bond issues with social and/or environmental significance. Disclaimer: Nothing in this post …
O'Shaughnessy Dam at Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite National Park.
Impact Muni Bonds | August 10, 2023
$57 million green bond in San Francisco to fund water sustainability
Editor’s note: ImpactAlpha has partnered with HIP Investor to highlight upcoming bond issues with social and/or environmental significance. Disclaimer: Nothing in this post …
New York City
Impact Muni Bonds | July 11, 2023
$307 million sustainability bond to rehabilitate and retrofit affordable housing in New York
Editor’s note: ImpactAlpha has partnered with HIP Investor to highlight upcoming bond issues with social and/or environmental significance. Disclaimer: Nothing in this post …
Solar panels and wind turbines in California.
Impact Muni Bonds | June 27, 2023
$1 billion in green bonds to reduce the cost of clean energy in Southern California
Editor’s note: ImpactAlpha has partnered with HIP Investor to highlight upcoming bond issues with social and/or environmental significance. Disclaimer: Nothing in this post …
Aqueducts at the south end of San Joaquin Valley, taking pumped water uphill, over the Grapevine, en route to Los Angeles
Impact Muni Bonds | June 1, 2023
Los Angeles’s $484 million bond to improve water sustainability
Editor’s note: ImpactAlpha has partnered with HIP Investor to highlight upcoming bond issues with social and/or environmental significance. Disclaimer: Nothing in this post …
Philadelphia, PA
Impact Muni Bonds | May 25, 2023
$80 million social bond in Philadelphia to tackle poverty and unlock growth
Editor’s note: ImpactAlpha has partnered with HIP Investor to highlight upcoming bond issues with social and/or environmental significance. Disclaimer: Nothing in this post or on …
Impact Muni Bonds | May 11, 2023
Santa Clara’s $47 million ed-tech bond to fund STEM tools in diverse school district
Editor’s note: ImpactAlpha has partnered with HIP Investor to highlight upcoming bond issues with social and/or environmental significance. Disclaimer: Nothing in this post or on …
Abbott Northwestern Hospital
Impact Muni Bonds | May 3, 2023
$363 million bond to fund post-covid hospital infrastructure expansion in the Twin Cities
Editor’s note: ImpactAlpha has partnered with HIP Investor to highlight upcoming bond issues with social and/or environmental significance. Disclaimer: Nothing in this post or on …
Photo credit: Divert
Muni Impact | May 1, 2023
Green muni bond in California provides $63 million to waste-to-fuel provider Divert
ImpactAlpha, May 1 – Massachusetts-based Divert culls food waste from US-based food retailers and converts it to natural gas through anaerobic digestion. A …
Arizona State University
Impact Muni Bonds | April 27, 2023
$75 million green bond to fund sustainable academic facilities at Arizona State University
Editor’s note: ImpactAlpha has partnered with HIP Investor to highlight upcoming bond issues with social and/or environmental significance. Disclaimer: Nothing in this post or on …
Affordable housing in Charlotte, NC
Impact Muni Bonds | April 19, 2023
$150 million social bond to fund affordable home ownership in North Carolina
Editor’s note: ImpactAlpha has partnered with HIP Investor to highlight upcoming bond issues with social and/or environmental significance. Disclaimer: Nothing in this post or on …
Kansas City Streetcar
Impact Muni Bonds | April 12, 2023
$66 million bond in Kansas City to fund sustainable light rail to improve mobility
Editor’s note: ImpactAlpha has partnered with HIP Investor to highlight upcoming bond issues with social and/or environmental significance. Disclaimer: Nothing in this post or on …
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 …
Muni Impact | November 28, 2022
Investor demand for Atlanta’s $369 million ‘social bond’ cuts city’s interest payments
ImpactAlpha, Nov. 28 – Under the banner of “Moving Atlanta Forward,” the city raised $410 million in general obligation bonds this month, including …
Photo by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.
Dealflow | September 6, 2022
Equitable Facilities Fund closes $230 million in social bonds for underserved charter schools
ImpactAlpha, September 6 — The New York-based nonprofit social impact fund aims to lower funding costs for high-performing and impact public charter schools …
Photo by Ting Internet.
Muni Impact | August 11, 2022
Ting Internet secures $200 million from Generate for communication infrastructure in communities
ImpactAlpha, August 11 — Cable internet versus fiber optic, you ask? A lower-waste footprint and lower-energy consumption makes fiber technology the more eco-friendly …
Photo by BlocPower.
Catalytic Capital | July 26, 2022
BlocPower secures a $3 million guarantee from Kresge Foundation to green and electrify buildings
ImpactAlpha, July 26 — Troy, Mich.-based Kresge Foundation has committed a $3 million guarantee to BlocPower. The foundation’s commitment supports a loan-loss reserve …
Photo credit: Shutterstock.
Climate Finance | December 9, 2021
‘Community Choice’ raises $2.2 billion with clean energy bonds in California
ImpactAlpha, December 9 — San Francisco Bay Area-based California Community Choice Financing Authority was set up earlier this year to help energy suppliers …
Darren Walker
Dealflow | June 11, 2020
Ford, MacArthur and other foundations to issue bonds to scale up COVID relief
ImpactAlpha, June 10 – Ford Foundation expects to issue $1 billion in long-term bonds, according to a report by The New York Times. “There’s …
Conservation | March 31, 2020
Seychelle’s successful ‘debt-for-conservation’ deal paves the way for more blue bonds
Four years ago, the Seychelles government signed a groundbreaking deal with The Nature Conservancy to refinance sovereign debt at a discount in return …
Conservation | January 13, 2018
Fresh Coast Capital raises $1.25 million for green municipal water management
Chicago-based Fresh Coast Capital raised the money from the Kresge Foundation to help fill the projected $105 billion funding gap between now and …
Features | May 17, 2017
Neighborly attracts $25 million to bring public finance online
Laurene Powell Jobs’ Emerson Collective and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale’s 8VC co-led the investment in the two-year-old digital marketplace, reports Fortune. Neighborly connects …
Podcasts
Innovative Finance | March 29, 2023
Using social bonds to address gender and racial inequities (podcast)
Corporate, nonprofit and municipal issuers are designating bond proceeds to support organizations that increase access to finance for women and people of color. …
Podcasts | February 3, 2023
Finding the opportunities in (and the problems with) the municipal bond market
ImpactAlpha’s David Bank joins Host Monique Aiken to to share some takeaways from this week’s Agents of Impact Call on the steps that …
Muni Impact | October 31, 2022
Optimizing the municipal bond market for health equity and racial justice (podcast)
ImpactAlpha, Oct. 31 – The municipal bond market has been called the original impact investment asset class, a source of capital for water, housing, …
Features | September 23, 2019
Mispriced climate risks signal investment shocks – and opportunities for action
The bigger the protests, the better for investors. In a counter-intuitive shift, the estimated four million global youth climate strikers who took to …
Calls
Muni Impact | June 22, 2023
Connecting supply and demand for racial equity strategies in muni markets (video)
ImpactAlpha, Jun. 22 – Even as some politicians ramp up anti-ESG rhetoric, asset owners and allocators are signaling an appetite for investment strategies …
Memphis skyline
Muni Impact | February 9, 2023
Engaging racial-equity risks and opportunities in municipal finance (video)
ImpactAlpha, Feb. 9 – The fatal beating by police of Tyre Nichols in Memphis last month exposed risks to the city’s finances that have …
Photo by Tamarcus Brown on Unsplash
Muni Impact | November 18, 2022
Mispriced risks, investor demand and community power center racial equity in municipal bonds (video)
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 …
Features | August 27, 2020
Call No. 22: Rooting out racism as a systemic risk
ImpactAlpha, Aug. 27 – Investors have been talking about systemic risks at least since the Great Financial Crisis of 2008. More recently, climate …
Agents of Impact
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