Place-Based Investing
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 …
photo: Chris Kendig
Impact Investing | May 19, 2022
Overheard at Total Impact: Diversify decision-making and shift power to communities
ImpactAlpha, May 19 – Agents of Impact convened upon the City of Brotherly Love, even as some unbrotherly events unfolded across the country …
Bill Flynn of Amtrak (left) and Ross Baird of Blueprint Local (right) | Photo credit: Blueprint Local
Place-Based Investing | February 2, 2022
Ross Baird’s blueprint for equitable real estate in southern ‘Zoom towns’ (Q&A)
ImpactAlpha, Feb. 2 – Ross Baird has made a career of plugging capital gaps for promising ideas in their earliest stages. Before “accelerator” and …
Community Finance | January 15, 2022
Solar proves a pathway for private capital to flow into low-income communities
ImpactAlpha, Jan. 13 – The race is on to install solar panels, lay in chargers for electric vehicles and retrofit housing for energy …
Signals | December 1, 2021
Can the recovery catalyze a business revival on the Navajo Nation?
ImpactAlpha, December 1 – The Navajo Nation, which includes parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, is one of the hardest places to …
Photo credit: CoStar
Dealflow | November 22, 2021
UC San Francisco backs four Bay Area organizations for place-based impact
ImpactAlpha, November 22 — UC San Francisco, which operates a major medical center, allocated a total of $5 million in debt to organizations …
Illustration by The Nation.
Dealflow | October 21, 2021
SMBX raises $11.5 million to democratize small business lending
ImpactAlpha, October 21 — San Francisco-based SMBX raised $11.5 million to democratize financing for small businesses. Launched in 2016, SMBX lets retail investors …
Hachita, New Mexico | Photo credit: Tony Prato.
Place-Based Investing | October 7, 2021
How place-based investors are pooling endowment capital for local affordable housing and small-business lending
ImpactAlpha, October 7 — In New Mexico, a nonprofit community health organization, a hospital and a local foundation all wanted to put more …
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania | Photo credit: Brittanica.
Catalytic Capital | September 13, 2021
Arctaris launches $20 million Opportunity Zone vehicle for place-based community impact in Pittsburgh
ImpactAlpha, September 13 — Boston-based Arctaris Impact Investors partners with foundations, governments and other organizations to help revitalize local U.S. underserved communities, and …
Place-Based Investing | August 24, 2021
Building an ecosystem for workforce development and opportunity for all in Alabama
If you are an impact investor seeking ways to make a difference, come to Alabama. A year ago, Gov. Kay Ivey created the …
Impact Voices | August 12, 2021
To build inclusive, community-scale funds, modernize the Investment Company Act of 1940
A growing number of Americans who never considered themselves impact investors are now taking a long hard look at the wealth they’ve amassed …
The Rise Apartments, a 200-unit complex, and the Cycle Shop, a historic building, in The Edge, a neighborhood inside the Memphis Medical District.
Catalytic Capital | July 20, 2021
Guarantee from Kresge Foundation catalyzes $30 million for Memphis fund
Memphis’s medical district, with about 10,000 residents and more than 30,000 employees and students, has a high poverty rate and a shortage of …
Place-Based Investing | July 14, 2021
There’s no building back better without investing in underserved communities
Between record levels of government stimulus, an unprecedented vaccination campaign and a buzzing economy, it’s easy to see reasons for optimism as America …
photo: Matt Rourke, AP
Community Finance | July 14, 2021
Investing in marginalized communities to drive the COVID recovery
ImpactAlpha, July 14 – The two-track recovery threatens to leave distressed communities even further behind. Consider Philadelphia’s Kensington neighborhood: “A community that was …
Photo credit: Woodforest National Bank.
Locavesting | July 1, 2021
Workforce housing in Indianapolis demonstrates Opportunity Zone impact
ImpactAlpha, July 1 – More than 90% of the 188 units at The Westmont property in Indianapolis will go to low-income residents. The $31 …
The Reconstruction | April 20, 2021
Reviving a Black cultural corridor in West Oakland – as a community-led cooperative
In another era, Esther’s Orbit Room helped make West Oakland the “Harlem of the West,” hosting the likes of B.B. King, James Brown …
Impact Voices | March 29, 2021
Georgia is throttling voters. The South’s financial system is doing the same to its entrepreneurs.
The ban on offering snacks and water to people waiting in line to vote that was just passed into law in Georgia really …
Locavesting | March 23, 2021
Rethinking economic development for an inclusive recovery
ImpactAlpha, March 23 – Policy makers are embracing bottom up strategies to address interlocking challenges if COVID-19, inequality and racial justice. The $1.9 …
Locavesting | March 17, 2021
Main Street crowdfunding platform Honeycomb secures $1.75 million to expand nationwide
ImpactAlpha, March 17 – Most crowdfunding platforms focus on startups raising equity. Pittsburgh-based Honeycomb helps local restaurants, food trucks and yoga shops raise …
Opportunity Zones | February 22, 2021
Opportunity Zones await makeover – and impact
ImpactAlpha, Feb. 22 – Tens of billions of dollars have been raised by opportunity funds. But most of the nearly 8,000 low-income opportunity …
Community Finance | February 9, 2021
Big companies back small businesses and the community development financiers that serve them
ImpactAlpha, Feb. 9 – Small businesses got a boost from Alicia Keys’ post-Super Bowl concert, sponsored by Verizon, which committed $10 million in …
Dealflow | February 1, 2021
Circuit Clinical raises $500,000 for COVID-19 tests and medical research
ImpactAlpha, February 1 – Buffalo, N.Y.-based Circuit Clinical supports clinical trials for medical research initiatives, including a saliva-based COVID-19 test. It received a $500,000 …
Community Finance | December 16, 2020
Entrepreneur Backed Assets Fund aims to provide liquidity for community lenders
ImpactAlpha, Dec. 16 – The nonprofit Entrepreneur backed Assets Fund will buy loans originated by a half-dozen members of a collaborative of community …
Dealflow | December 2, 2020
Inclusio seeks to anchor its social mission by going public
ImpactAlpha, December 2 – Brussels-based Inclusio develops and manages affordable housing, schools, reception centers for asylum-seekers and other social housing and infrastructure projects. …
Community Finance | November 19, 2020
LISC looks to “10X” investment in closing racial wealth gaps
ImpactAlpha Nov. 19 – The Local Initiatives Support Corp. wants to scale up the response to addressing persistent disparities in wealth, health and …
Community Finance | November 17, 2020
Blueprint Local and LISC are using Opportunity Zones to bridge divisions, beginning in the Southeast
As we move beyond a difficult election cycle, it is time to focus on an ambitious community investment agenda that has a meaningful …
Place-Based Investing | October 26, 2020
How place-based strategies in Virginia and other states are leveraging private capital for public good
ImpactAlpha, Oct. 26 – Virginia Community Capital has turned a $15 million seed investment from the state in 2006 into more than $600 …
Features | October 20, 2020
How corporations can make good on their racial equity pledges
Netflix and Goldman Sachs are in vastly different businesses, but in formulating their responses to the racial crisis facing America, these corporations came …
Dealflow | September 22, 2020
Co-op Cincy and Seed Commons launch $3 million worker ownership fund
ImpactAlpha, Sept. 22 – Even before the COVID pandemic, more than 5,500 businesses in the region were at risk of closing due to …
Capital Impact Partners helped finance the renovation of the Garland Building in Detroit's West Village.
Place-Based Investing | August 19, 2020
Can real estate financing + small-business lending = equitable community growth?
ImpactAlpha, Aug. 19, 2020 –– Arlington, Va.-based Capital Impact Partners, a community-development real estate lender, and CDC Small Business Finance in San Diego …
Features | August 17, 2020
Creative financing to unlock COVID aid in Alabama
ImpactAlpha, August 17 – The financial strains the COVID pandemic has caused in many cities and states can be seen in sharp relief …
Clean Energy | July 21, 2020
Grassroots platforms are not waiting for Washington to invest in a green new deal
ImpactAlpha, July 21 – Stimulus measures pushed by Joe Biden and other Democrats could channel billions or even trillions into clean energy, green …
Entrepreneurship | July 13, 2020
Let the needs of small business drive impact investing in local economies
Impact investors dedicated to strengthening local economies must change how they support local businesses—starting with redefining the problem the investors are trying to …
Asia | July 9, 2020
Proximity Finance secures $14 million for loans to Myanmar’s farmers
ImpactAlpha, June 9 – Nearly 40% of Myanmar’s rural population lives in poverty. Proximity Finance, the microfinance arm of agriculture services provider Proximity …
Call Recording | July 1, 2020
Call No. 20: Investors share experiences in getting their assets off the sidelines
“It’s a great time for new entrants, but for those of us who’ve been doing this for a while it is equally urgent to raise our game right and to not get complacent,” said Margot Brandenburg of the Ford Foundation.
Entrepreneurship | June 3, 2020
Local funds model the racial reckoning and renewal central to the COVID recovery
ImpactAlpha, June 3 – If the COVID crisis has laid bare longstanding inequities, the widespread protests over the police killing of George Floyd …
Agents of Impact | May 28, 2020
Agents of Impact call recap: 10x’ing community capital
ImpactAlpha, May 28 – Looking for a silver lining to the COVID crisis? It could be that the crisis is the catalyst to …
Catalytic Capital | May 26, 2020
New York’s $100 million loan fund for small businesses is a model for a $1 billion national fund
ImpactAlpha, May 26 – New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo may have been listening in to ImpactAlpha’s Agents of Impact call last week. The …
Entrepreneurship | May 13, 2020
France targets startups for COVID relief
ImpactAlpha, May 13 – HD Rain, a Paris-based startup that uses machine learning and tv satellite signals to offer low cost, high resolution …
Features | April 23, 2020
Will low-income and communities of color again fall through the cracks of small-business relief?
ImpactAlpha, April 23 – Hopes were high in community finance circles that the fresh round of federal small business relief funding would carve …
Catalytic Capital | April 20, 2020
With zero-interest loans and deposits, wealthy families rush capital to rural lenders and impoverished communities
ImpactAlpha, April 20 – The single-family office Ceniarth is committing $3 million in zero-interest loans to help community development financial institutions, or CDFIs, …
Entrepreneurship | April 15, 2020
Fintech lenders expand access to COVID relief funds for small businesses
ImpactAlpha, April 15 – Earlier action and COVID testing could have saved lives. Faster and more effective financial support could save millions of …
Entrepreneurship | April 9, 2020
How community banks and local lenders are bridging racial gaps in COVID recovery
ImpactAlpha, April 9 – When President Trump gathered bankers for a video conference about financial relief for small businesses, CEOs of Goldman Sachs, …
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 …
Agents of Impact | March 27, 2020
Antony Bugg-Levine, Nonprofit Finance Fund
ImpactAlpha, March 27 – When voluntary and then mandatory social distancing shut down businesses and nonprofits in New York, the effects were immediate. …