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Deploy! | Amy Cortese
Lenders face a steep learning curve in deploying capital for green community infrastructure

Green project developers and project finance skills have always been in short supply.  Now, with $27 billion in Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund awards …

worker assessing a building
Impact Voices | Cynthia Muller
Lessons from the Kellogg Foundation’s $310 million in mission-driven investments
mission-driven investments kellogg
Inclusive Economy | Essma Bengabsia
Addressing the broken child care system with impact investments
child care impact investments
Climate Finance | Bruce McNamer
The climate transition and investment opportunities for family offices 
climate investment family offices
Return on Inclusion | Dennis Price
FreeCap’s ‘decarceration index’ highlights companies outcompeting with fair-chance hiring
decarceration index

Dealflow

Latest impact investments and fundraises

The Brief

Read by thousands of impact pros daily

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April 25, 2024 | Jessica Pothering
The Brief: Upskilling lenders for the Great Deployment

Greetings Agents of Impact! In today’s Brief: Featured: Deploy! Lenders face a steep learning curve in deploying capital for green community infrastructure. Green …

Today’s brief

Featured: Deploy!

Lenders face a steep learning curve in deploying capital for green community infrastructure. Green project development and project finance skills have always been in short supply. Now, with $27 billion in Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund awards teed up for community solar, building electrification and local EV charging projects, those skills will be in even greater demand. “There's going to be a huge need for talent and resources to make this all work,” says Trenton Allen of Sustainable Capital Advisors, a financial advisory and consulting firm that worked with the Justice Climate Fund on its winning proposal for GGRF funding. Allen is launching what he calls the Sustainable Infrastructure Finance Academy to offer resources and advice to community lenders, local governments and developers. “When you're cranking along on these projects and trying to deploy this capital, you're going to need to call someone to gain some perspective or support,” explains Allen. “That knowledge may not be deep in these organizations. They may not have two or three expert climate folks like they do for housing and small business.” 

Dealflow: Impact VC

IDB Lab backs small businesses in Paraguay and health access in Ecuador. The experimental venture funding arm of the Inter-American Development Bank inked two investments in markets with little available venture or impact capital. IDB Lab provided a $3 million anchor investment for iThink VC, an investment firm that supports early stage tech startups in Latin America, focusing on Paraguay and Bolivia. iThink VC was co-founded in 2021 by Jazmin Gustale Gill, Paraguay’s former vice minister of inclusive economic growth and founder of the country’s national innovation strategy, and Juan Cruz Valdez Rojas, who previously worked with Bayer and Monsanto. They have made 10 investments, including Bolivia-based Koban, a neobank, and DeltaX, an Uber-like service for heavy cargo shipments and deliveries. “I see how Latin startups are transforming our region's problems into business opportunities,” said Gill. iThink VC is looking to raise $20 million for its fund.

Impact Voices: Child-Lens Investing

Mission investing to improve children’s lives at the Kellogg and Annie E. Casey foundations. The W.K. Kellogg Foundation in Battle Creek, Mich., and the Annie E. Casey Foundation in Baltimore share a common mission: to improve the lives of American children. To deliver on that mission, the institutions have added debt and equity investments to their grantmaking toolkits. Over 17 years, the $8 billion Kellogg Foundation has committed more than $310 million through mission-related investments, or MRIs and catalytic program-related investments, or PRIs. Annie E. Casey has committed 3% of its $3.4 billion endowment to impact investments. Roughly 70% was committed as PRIs and 30% as MRIs. 

Agents of Impact: Follow the Talent

Nick Moon, previously with LeapFrog Investments, joins Circulate Capital as its new chair… Arctaris Impact Investors seeks an investor relations analyst in the Boston area… One Acre Fund is hiring a US operations associate in New York… Impact Finance Center is hosting its national community foundation impact investing landscape scan, Thursday, May 30… Applications are open for the Urban Future Prize Competition, a competitive prize for early-stage climate tech startups to win cash prizes and admission into NYU Urban Future Lab’s ACRE Incubator.

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Deploy! | Amy Cortese

Lenders face a steep learning curve in deploying capital for green community infrastructure
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Lessons from the Kellogg Foundation’s $310 million in mission-driven investments
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