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Place-Based Investing | Roodgally Senatus
With collaborations and catalytic capital, place-based pioneers look to expand their impact

Impact investors are building a deeper toolkit for strategic placed-based collaboration. If place-based investing 1.0 was pioneering new models with local partners, then …

Creative Economy | Laura Callanan
The talk outpaces the walk: Three tough truths about impact investing
creative economy
Return on Inclusion | Dennis Price
McKnight Foundation’s Tonya Allen: Philanthropy has the right and responsibility to counter attacks on DEI (Q&A)
Tonya Allen DEI
Climate Finance | Jessica Pothering
UN kicks off $100 million fund to protect displaced communities from climate shocks
refugees in Bangladesh
Catalytic Capital | Lisa Maria Braun
Pension funds help catalyze gender-lens investments in Asia
market in bangkok

Dealflow

Latest impact investments across asset classes and geographies

The Brief

Read by thousands of impact pros daily

May 9, 2024 | ImpactAlpha
The Brief: Tough truths about impact investing

Greetings Agents of Impact! 🔌 On the next Plugged In: Better, cheaper and faster climate impact with Third Sphere’s Stonly Blue. In the …

Today’s brief

Featured: Mission Investors Exchange

The talk outpaces the walk: Three tough truths about impact investing. For all the talk of innovation and risk-taking, impact investors, and particularly foundations, can be unnerved by novelty, frustratingly clubbish and slow to cut checks, writes Upstart Co-Lab’s Laura Callanan. Last month, Upstart raised $15 million in the first close of its strategy to drive an inclusive creative economy through film and TV, video games, fashion, music, beauty and other creative industries. Upstart found that foundations required between nine and 18 months to reach an investment decision. Two foundations said their process takes a full 24 months. “This is an eternity when you are starting a fund, and time is (literally) money,” Callanan says. In a guest post, Callanan shares some tough truths she’s learned over a quarter-century of mobilizing impact capital. “Change takes time,” writes Callanan. “But we are overdue for the impact investing club to burst open its doors, welcome new investors, and ask legacy members to work a little harder.” 

Dealflow: Latin America

Chilean startup Reuse raises $4.5 million to refurbish electronics in Mexico. Some 5.5 million tons of electronic devices like smartphones and laptops are discarded each year, according to a recent tally. Circular economy startup Reuse, which operates in Mexico, Chile and Peru, operates refurbished electronics marketplaces that cut down on electronics waste and generate savings for consumers. Reuse sells the used devices to businesses and partners with retailers on trade-ins. The startup generated $15 million in revenues last year. 

Signals: Investing in Place

With collaborations and catalytic capital, place-based pioneers look to expand their impact. If “place-based investing” 1.0 was pioneering new models with local partners, then version 2.0 is leveraging lessons learned from early strategies for wider collaborations and broader impact. “Place-based 2.0 is about how you branch off,” Betty Francisco of the Boston Impact Initiative said at ImpactPHL’s Total Impact Summit last week. Fostering collaborative initiatives, more intentionally engaging public partners on projects, and blending pools of capital to solve complex financing challenges was top of mind for many impact investors as they look to capitalize on the unprecedented federal investment in green infrastructure for underserved communities. The nonprofit Boston Impact Initiative is raising a $20 million second fund to invest throughout Massachusetts and in select communities across New England (see, “The Liist”). The panel, centered on big and bold bets to drive place-based impact, included MacArthur Foundation’s Allison Clark and Ben McAdams of Common Ground Institute, a public policy development organization and was moderated by ImpactAlpha’s Roodgally Senatus.

Agents of Impact: Follow the Talent

Anuradha Shetty, previously with Soros Economic Development Fund, joins Bramble Partners as an investment partner… S2G Ventures, which recently spun out from Builders Vision, appoints Vikram Sharma, formerly a senior adviser with Baird Capital, as operating partner… HCAP Partners promotes Jessica Kim, who joined HCAP as an Impact Capital Managers Mosaic Fellow, and Ben Consoli to vice presidents on its investment team. Chenjing Wang, previously with Morgan Stanley, joins as senior associate… Malcolm Sullivan, previously with Greenhouse Software, joins Social Finance as senior talent associate… Quantified Ventures hires Ana Koerner, previously with Wellsky, as a senior associate.

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Place-Based Investing | Roodgally Senatus

With collaborations and catalytic capital, place-based pioneers look to expand their impact
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The talk outpaces the walk: Three tough truths about impact investing
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Chilean startup Reuse raises $4.5 million to expand its refurbished electronics marketplace in Mexico
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