Activest’s FIRE strategy seeks to bend the arc of municipal finance toward ‘fiscal justice.’ It’s distressingly easy to find places where city finances are distorted by systemic racism or outright bigotry. It’s harder to spot projects that are using financial tools to redress social harms and advance racial equity. Activest, the investment research and analytics firm, made its reputation by calling out credit risks in cities that, for example, are reliant on excessive fees and fines on their residents of color. To finance solutions, Activest is preparing to become an investment advisor itself. With Florida-based Community Capital Management, Activest later this year plans to launch the FIRE Fund, for "fixed-income racial equity," to help investors back municipal bonds and other fixed-income products that move capital to what it calls “fiscal justice.” “FIRE addresses the way that debt in the form of fixed-income products has been inaccessible, extractive and harmful for Black residents,” Activest’s Ryan Bowers tells ImpactAlpha. “FIRE provides a different model of investing that centers the voice and perspective of Black people and communities and takes a regenerative approach to community wealth-building.”
Obvious Ventures backs Senken to finance reforestation through ‘carbon forwards’. Berlin and Cape Town-based Senken is a blockchain-based carbon credit trading platform. Its next offering is a form of advance-purchase carbon credits to support reforestation and ecosystem restoration projects in development. The carbon credit “forwards” provide investors with discounted carbon credits in return for financing environmental projects upfront. Senken plans to test the concept with a verified mangrove restoration project in Kenya. Obvious Ventures led the $7.5 million financing round. Offline Ventures, Inflection, Kraken Ventures and Climate Capital participated.
How Fair Food Network is reshaping investment norms to fight wealth inequity. New place-based funds that take a community-first approach are helping shift power dynamics and investing norms that have led to wealth inequity. “Capital is an expression of relational, structural and personal power,” write Anjali Deshmukh of Make Justice Normal and Fair Food Network’s Noah Fulmer and Kate Krauss. “Though often made invisible, these power dynamics are root causes of wealth gaps.” The Fair Food Network, an Ann Arbor, Mich-based nonprofit, is helping stand up the Michigan Good Food Fund, which is raising grant and catalytic capital to unlock $40 million for mission-driven and diverse-led food enterprises. A community board made up of local food entrepreneurs, nonprofits, government, and financial and technical assistance providers sets direction and performance targets for the collaborative.
ImpactAlpha partner event: New Ventures is hosting the Latin America Impact Investing Forum, or FLII, Feb. 28-March 2 in Mérida, Mexico. ImpactAlpha subscribers get 35% off with the code IMPACTALPHA35.
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 …
When considering catalytic capital investments in emerging markets and specifically Africa, a persistent and material challenge is the need to increase local currency participation …
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 …