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
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
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 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
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
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 …