Community foundations embrace mission-related investing to boost local impact. In 30 years at the Battle Creek Community Foundation, Brenda Hunt has seen the ups and downs of the small city in southwest Michigan. In 2013, vacancies dotted downtown years after the Great Recession. She saw entrepreneurship, small business ownership and a vibrant local economy as the keys to recovery. “This was not something we could grant our way out of,” Hunt says. The community foundation ventured into impact investing with loans and financing for small downtown businesses. An increasing number of the more than 900 community foundations across the US are making mission-related investments to boost their impact and build local ecosystems, Andrea Riquier reports for ImpactAlpha. “Even folks who historically had a separation between program officers and investment officers have started bridging that wall,” says David Sand of Community Capital Management, which is out with a report that explores community foundations’ adoption of mission-aligned investing.
San Diego school bond targets green improvements and equitable access. A $320 million bond issuance by the San Diego Unified School District aims to invest in environmental sustainability across the district while increasing equitable access to education for the majority of its students who are economically disadvantaged. HIP Investor gives the bonds’ environmental and social impact objectives a rating of 79.7 on a scale of 100, putting SDUSD in the top 3% of more than 18,000 K-12 entities rated by HIP. ImpactAlpha is featuring SDUSD’s bonds as part of our ongoing series with HIP Investor to highlight bond issues with social and/or environmental significance.
Investing in ‘meaningful connectivity’ to a better Internet in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Experts once talked about less developed countries “leapfrogging” more developed countries thanks to mobile phones. The past few years have seen the limits of the leapfrog beyond digital payments and basic communications. Only a privileged few have affordable access to high-speed Internet. “Mobile operators are drip-feeding the Internet, when we need an open flow of information and access,” Ben Matranga and Jim Forster of Connectivity Capital write in a guest post. “The real opportunity for change comes when people have uncapped, always-on broadband Internet access.” Connecting most households in Africa, Asia and Latin America with fixed infrastructure will require meaningful investment in broadband, Matranga and Forster say. “It’s all a cause for the creation of connectivity as a new and central category in impact investing.”
Cynthia Herrera, a former climate justice fellow with University of Maryland, joins Green & Healthy Homes Initiative as senior director of climate, energy and equity… B Lab is hiring a head of business and finance transformation… Soros Fund Management is looking for an impact strategy senior analyst in New York… In London: Big Society Capital seeks a policy and advocacy manager in London; Opportunity International is recruiting an innovative finance manager; and bp has an opening for a sustainability and ESG finance advisor.
ImpactAlpha, August 25 – A growing ecosystem of Native-led entrepreneurs, lenders, financial intermediaries and nonprofits are driving Indian Country’s emerging economy. “It’s kind …
ImpactAlpha, July 28 – Most historically Black colleges and universities were formed during the Reconstruction era. In the more than a century since, Spelman, …
ImpactAlpha, Jun. 22 – Even as some politicians ramp up anti-ESG rhetoric, asset owners and allocators are signaling an appetite for investment strategies …
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 …
ImpactAlpha. Feb. 24 – “A labor market where workers have more opportunities and have more power and have more leverage is a good …
ImpactAlpha, Feb. 9 – The fatal beating by police of Tyre Nichols in Memphis last month exposed risks to the city’s finances that have …
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 …
David Bank is joined by Marjorie Kelly of The Democracy Collaborative to explore the ways that impact investors both help and hinder systemic …
🎧 Impact Briefing. Host Brian Walsh chats with Amy Cortese to set the stage for the UN General Assembly and Climate Week NYC. …
David Bank catches up with Robert Munson, President of SOCAP and Managing director at the Sorenson Impact Center, who is putting together next …
Pro Mujer’s Carmen Correa joins host Monique Aiken to share how the pioneering Latin American microfinance institution’s bonds are democratizing gender lens investing …
ImpactAlpha, August 25 – A growing ecosystem of Native-led entrepreneurs, lenders, financial intermediaries and nonprofits are driving Indian Country’s emerging economy. “It’s kind …
Paris Prince of the Intentional Endowments Network joins host Monique Aiken to talk about how impact investors are responding to legal attacks on …
Quito, Ecuador, is more than 9,000 feet above sea level. But even higher than the city are Andean wetlands that filter, store and …
David Bank chats with Acre Africa’s Niza Banda in the next conversation from the recent “Connecting capital to communities” gathering at the Salzburg …
Drawing Africa’s pension funds deeper into impact investing is one of the goals of this week’s Africa Impact Summit in Cape Town, South …
David Bank chats with Empowa’s Glen Jordan in the next conversation from the recent “Connecting Capital to Communities” gathering at the Salzburg Global …
David Bank chats with FarMart’s Samridhi Singh in the next conversation in our series from the recent Salzburg Global Seminar on “Connecting Capital …
David Bank chats with FarMart’s Samridhi Singh in the next conversation in our series from the recent Salzburg Global Seminar on “Connecting Capital …
Heads of state from around the world gathered at the UN Headquarters in New York last week to review the implementation of the …
The impact investing industry is in a unique position in that its main objectives align with those of any (sensible) government. It wants …
Note: This is an abridged version for ImpactAlpha. For all 10 tips, please visit this article on Medium.com. At the end of 2022, …
As world leaders gather in New York City this week for the UN General Assembly and New York Climate Week, investors and funders …
African countries have huge infrastructure needs, and governments need private investment to help meet them, particularly considering increasing climate impacts and green development …
Renewable energy generation and storage opportunities were a key focus at last week’s Africa Climate Summit in Nairobi, culminating in $26 billion in new …
Impact investing offers the promise of greater impact per dollar as funds are returned and recycled into new investments that generate new impact. …
This essay is adapted from Marjorie Kelly’s forthcoming book, “Wealth Supremacy: How the Extractive Economy and the Biased Rules of Capitalism Drive Today’s …
The European Union’s Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation, known as SFDR, is making waves in the investment industry. The legislative measure, introduced in 2019, …
The temperature was over 110 degrees Fahrenheit the day I met Roopa, a widowed mother of three, on her tiny plot of land …
An increasingly important question for impact investors is how to validate that their investments are having the intended impact on people or the …
Over the last few years, the main story around U.S. food waste funding has been that private capital has started to pay attention and invest …
ImpactAlpha, September 8 — In 15 years in impact investing, Christopher Bentley noticed “a lot of for-profit companies focused on the criminal justice …
ImpactAlpha, August 18 – Monica Brand Engel’s advice to impact investors is this: Imperfect execution is ok. “Authentic impact is about accepting imperfection …
ImpactAlpha, Aug. 11 – Samuel Yeboah isn’t discouraged by the economic storm battering his home country of Ghana and many other emerging economies. “As …
Many investors look at promising new climate solutions and say, ‘Great, come back to me when you have traction.’ Azolla Ventures is more …
ImpactAlpha, June 30 – The first thing that Katherine Stodulka does when you meet her is suggest you meet someone else. Then she’ll …
ImpactAlpha, May 26 – A decade ago, investors pushed back against the loan products Jessica Espinoza was designing for female business owners as …
ImpactAlpha, May 12 – Nigeria-born climate entrepreneur and “professional nomad” Aina Abiodun is bullish on place-based climate innovation. “There is nothing more urgent than …
ImpactAlpha, May 5 – John Moore quit his corporate gig and moved to Philadelphia two decades ago. He found a city rich in …
ImpactAlpha, April 28 — A first generation Nigerian-American, Su Sanni grew up in East New York, Brooklyn and Jamaica, Queens. The low-income neighborhoods, …
ImpactAlpha, Apr. 21 – Attorney and academic Lourdes Germán recognized early the power of public finance. She has spent years working at firms including …
ImpactAlpha, Apr. 14 – “Net zero is not going to get us anywhere,” Ariane Mahler of Veridien Global Investors tells ImpactAlpha’s David Bank. “You …
ImpactAlpha, March 24 – Hundreds of companies and investors this week urged policymakers to protect their “freedom to invest responsibly,” marking a new …
ImpactAlpha, Nov. 16 – Billions of dollars in venture capital are pouring into climate tech. And hundreds of organizations, initiatives, coalitions and conferences are …
The power of impact investing comes from the fact that it’s more than just an approach or a screen (or an asset class!) — it’s …