M31 Capital’s Opportunity Fund targets workforce housing in the San Francisco Bay Area

ImpactAlpha, April 9 –What’s difference do Opportunity Zone tax breaks make for a commercial real estate fund? San Francisco-based real estate company M31 Capital has launched a $25 million Opportunity Fund to buy up vacant and underutilized apartment and mixed-use properties in the San Francisco Bay Area and restore them as entry-level workforce housing. M31

Kresge seeds two Opportunity Zone funds, with impact strings attached

The Kresge Foundation is anchoring two Opportunity Zone funds on the condition that the fund managers agree to measure and track their impact.

A launch pad for businesses that can make Opportunity Zones thrive

Even before Opportunity Zone legislation arrived last year, providing tax incentives for investments into low-income neighborhoods, Launch Pad had begun the expansion of its New Orleans co-working space and business incubator to Newark, Nashville and Memphis.

Now the firm has raised a $1.33 million seed round to jumpstart its expansion inside Opportunity Zones around the country.

Successful Opportunity Zone investments will pull people up, not push them out

"Many Opportunity Zone investors may not be so responsive to their communities, and will instead seek to change the character of a neighborhood by building luxury apartments or destination retail," writes Turner Impact Capital's Bobby Turner. "Fulfilling the spirit of the Opportunity Zone ideal means pulling people up, not pushing people out.

Pushing for community engagement and impact reporting in Opportunity Zone investing

A new reporting framework from the U.S. Impact Investing Alliance and the Beeck Center at Georgetown University stresses key principles, including engagement with low-income and underinvested communities, equitable community benefits, and transparency and measurement around impact objectives and outcomes.

Prudential commits $100 million to narrow the racial wealth gap in Memphis, New Orleans and Atlanta

Place-based, blended finance through a racial lens. A $100 million commitment from Prudential Financial is a trifecta of impact investing trends.

Blueprint Local: Texas fund is a blueprint for investors betting on their hometowns – and the businesses bringing them back

The idea is simple but execution has been hard: helping local investors invest in local entrepreneurs to revive local communities, all across the U.S. Ross Baird, the founder of Village Capital, has formed Blueprint Local to assemble the pieces for such local entrepreneurial revivals.