ImpactAlpha, Apr. 28 – ImpactAssets has set up a COVID Response Fund to channel donor-advised funds to unmet needs.
The fund will leverage the nonprofit investment manager’s network of investors to move flexible capital to companies and individual’s hardest hit by the pandemic.
A key strategy will be channeling charitable dollars to community banks and Community Development Financial Institution, or CDFI lenders.
Through the COVID Response Fund, “our family office is supporting mission-driven companies rapidly delivering products and services related to the crisis, as well as stabilizing affected social enterprises and small businesses,” says Blue Haven Initiative’s Liesel Pritzker Simmons, an ImpactAssets board member.
Impact step up
ImpactAssets says it has more than $1 billion in investment opportunities in its pipeline.
“We have been thrilled to see impact investors leaning in at record levels to support critical needs in this moment of crisis,” said ImpactAssets’ Margret Trilli.
Trilli says the nonprofit saw 3.5 times the normal volume in grants in the first quarter, and double the number of investments.