Greetings, Agents of Impact! 

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In this week’s Open:

• Gender lens in Latin America
• African fund managers
• Financing transit in Chicago’s South Side
• The $2 billion crowd

Let’s get to it. – Dennis Price

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Must-reads on ImpactAlpha

• Gender lens in Latin America. In Latin America, investors are using a gender lens to spot opportunities for alpha, as I wrote from the GLI LatAm Forum in Medellín, Colombia. Read my recap.
  
• Ownership economy. Financing transitions to employee ownership delivers employee wealth-creation, business growth and attractive returns, as Roodgally Senatus and David Bank report. Check it out.
  
• African fund managers. Local capital providers in Africa are “proving both the financial and impact case for rethinking small business finance,” argues Susan de Witt of the Collaborative for Frontier Finance. Go deeper.
  
• The power of the IRA’s ‘direct pay.’ A wave of community-owned clean energy projects are a function of the “direct pay” provision in the Inflation Reduction Act that allow tax-exempt entities to sell the law’s tax incentives to companies with tax liabilities, share Michelle Moore and Elvis Moleka of Groundswell. Read their report.
  
• A twist on ‘tax increment financing.’  A new approach to a well-worn financing mechanism is attracting attention to Chicago, reports Andrea Riquier. The city is employing tax increment financing, or TIF, to extend the local transit authority to the city’s far south side, one of Chicago’s poorest areas. Read more.
  
• ICYMI: The alpha in impact. A group of dedicated impact investors last week staked ImpactAlpha to $3.3 million in equity to grow our media and data platform. Read David Bank’s special note to Agents of Impact.

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Agents of Impact

🏃🏾‍♀️ People on the move

• Social Finance names Karen Anderson, formerly with the University of Chicago’s Becker Friedman Institute for Economics, to lead its new Social Finance Institute. 
  
• Latanya Mapp Frett of Global Fund for Women will become president and CEO of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors in January; founding CEO Melissa Berman is stepping down. 
  
• Denise Scott will step down as president of the Local Initiatives Support Corp. at the end of the year; Michael Pugh, ex-of Carver Federal Savings Bank is LISC’s new CEO.

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Impact Briefing

🎧 On the podcast

David Bank joins host Monique Aiken to share ImpactAlpha’s big news. And David catches up with Graham Singh to discuss the financing mechanisms that Trinity Centres Foundation in Montreal is developing to repurpose surplus church properties for nonprofits and affordable housing. Plus, the headlines. 

• Listen to the latest episode, and follow all of ImpactAlpha’s podcasts on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen.
  
• ICYMI. “Surplus church properties in Canada get new life as community hubs and affordable housing,” by David Bank.

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Short Signals: What We’re Reading

👧🏻👩🏾👱🏼‍♀️👨🏽 The $2 billion crowd. It took five years to raise the first $1 billion on equity crowdfunding platforms, and just two years to raise the second $1 billion. More than 6,400 companies have filed to raise funds through 7,400 offerings on more than 110 registered crowdfunding portals (with a 69% success rate). (Crowdfund Capital Advisors)

📝 US companies wake up to EU climate disclosures. Starting in January, the largest American companies that raise money on European stock exchanges will have to meet the EU’s sweeping climate disclosure requirements. Thousands more companies with operations in Europe will begin reporting in 2025. (E&E News) 

☀️ Economic impact of the Paris climate goals. By 2300, climate mitigation efforts that keep expected warming well below the 2-degree Celsius goal of the agreement would generate cumulative expected economic benefits of $467 trillion in present value. (Resources for the Future)

😎 Scaling sustainable fashion. As much as $400 billion is needed for next-gen materials and processing innovations to reduce carbon emissions, waste, and water usage in fashion. Project financing will be key. (Fashion for Good and Spring Lane Capital)

🌍 Nature-based solutions in Africa. The World Resource Institute’s Land Accelerator Africa selected 16 companies from a dozen African countries making everything from cosmetic products to organic fertilizer. More than half are founded by women and another half are led by young people. (World Resources Institute)

💲 Green bonds > fossil-fuel debt. Environmentally-friendly projects outraised fossil fuels in debt issuance by companies and governments in the first half of 2023. Most of the green issuances are from financial institutions, governments and utilities, rather than companies. (Bloomberg)

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 Get in the Game

💼 Step up

• In New York, Deutsche Bank’s community development financing group seeks a vice president.
  
• Wells Fargo is on the hunt for an equity optimization and social impact investing director in Charlotte.
  
• Melinda Gates’ Pivotal Ventures is looking for a director of equity and belonging in Seattle.

NEW! Visit ImpactAlpha’s Career Hub for more impact investing jobs. Contact us for job postings.

🤝 Meet up

Don’t miss these upcoming in-person and virtual events:

• Oct. 25: American Democracy: A new investment imperative for impact investors, moderated by ImpactAlpha’s David Bank. (San Francisco)
  
• Nov. 2: Meet the Players: Financing Shared Ownership of Enterprise Mixer (New York)
  
• Nov. 17: NYU’s ESG and Impact Investing Boot Camp (New York)

SUBSCRIBE (with 75% off) to access substantial discounts on partner events.

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