Good economy actually is good news as impact investors adjust to new realities. The US economy may have gone from a soft landing to no landing. Goldman Sachs this week raised its estimate of first-quarter US GDP growth to 3.1% from 2.5%, after the fourth quarter’s 3.4% and the scorching 4.9% in last year’s third quarter. Interest rate expectations have normalized, lending markets are thawing, and investor sentiment is back to positive. “This feels like a Goldilocks moment, and impact investors are sitting in Baby Bear’s chair,” ImpactAlpha contributing editor Robert Brown writes in the final article of his four-part Macro Impact series. As broad markets rally, he says, impact investors that have been bruised and frustrated should take note. “Despite the drumbeat of negative election-year rhetoric emanating from the DC echo chamber, objectively, for most investors, things look rosy.”
Innovative startups are changing the landscape of health impact everywhere. Are investors aware? While impact investment funding levels in health are low, “the need and opportunity for investment in health only grows,” write Carl Nicholas Ng and Miguel Legarda of Verge HealthTech Fund, a venture fund backed by Impact Ventures by J&J Foundation. Reach52’s digital platform, for example, connects community health workers and small pharmacies in rural areas to collect data, deliver targeted health campaigns, and make affordable health products available. More than three-quarters of unvaccinated households engaged by Reach52 received their essential childhood vaccines for Hepatitis B, polio and other diseases within a month.
Quilt raises $33 million to launch its sleek heat pump. Heat pump sales in the US are expected to ramp up, as states implement generous financial incentives in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. Even with financial support, systems can be complicated and costly to install, requiring new ducts or room-by-room “mini-split” units. California-based Quilt is launching small ductless heat pumps that can be controlled with smart thermostats. Energy Impact Partners and Galvanize Climate Solutions led Quilt’s Series A round. Other investors include Lowercarbon Capital and MCJ Collective, as well as Drew Scott, host of HGTV show Property Brothers. “As someone who has spent years transforming homes and understanding homeowners' needs, I've been eagerly waiting for a breakthrough like this,” Scott said.
Colorado is demonstrating how states can accelerate conversions to employee ownership (video). Colorado Gov. Jared Polis in 2019 created an employee ownership office to incentivize and provide support for retiring owners to exit to employees. Polis also introduced tax credits for employee ownership structures and a cash collateral program to finance conversions and provide liquidity to selling business owners. “Colorado is the first state in the country to codify the substantive characteristics of employee ownership in a way that is form-agnostic,” said Jason Wiener of the Colorado Employee Ownership Commission at the Employee Ownership Ideas Forum in Washington, DC, last week. The three-day gathering by the Aspen Institute and Rutgers showcased how federal and state policymakers can work with private investors to build an equitable and inclusive ownership economy. Employee ownership is “a big deal” and “a little bit revolutionary,” Senator Bernie Sanders told forum participants during a visit to Capitol Hill. “It suggests that people don’t have to just work for other people. They can actually own the places that they work in and be part of the decision making process.”
Appalachian Funders Network appoints Ryan Eller, previously president of Beloved Community Foundation, to executive director… Elaine Di Monaco, formerly with the Center for Public Integrity, joins The Pivot Fund as associate director of philanthropy… The Rockefeller Foundation is recruiting a foundation services office manager in Washington, DC… The Reinvestment Fund is hiring a clean energy and sustainable finance lending director… Macquarie Group Foundation’s social impact investment team is looking for an investment manager in New York.
In New Orleans, the city’s housing finance agency has become a “green bank” to underwrite community solar, water treatment projects, and resilience hubs. …
Private equity fund managers looking for value-creation opportunities are increasingly finding their way to impact themes like climate-resilient and sustainable agriculture, employee engagement …
ImpactAlpha, January 19 – Impact investors have for years debated the need for embedded structures to incentivize impact outcomes for impact fund managers. …
ImpactAlpha, Dec. 15 – The $4 trillion muni market is so big that small movements in the pricing of bonds can mean shifts of …
ImpactAlpha, November 17 – That women are more adversely affected by climate change is well established (in impact and development circles at any …
This week’s Agents of Impact Call continued a tradition started nearly a decade ago by Fran Seegull of the US Impact Investing Alliance …
ImpactAlpha, Sept. 29 – It’s the age-old struggle: labor vs capital, workers vs. owners. But what happens when employees get a stake in the …
ImpactAlpha, August 25 – A growing ecosystem of Native-led entrepreneurs, lenders, financial intermediaries and nonprofits are driving Indian Country’s emerging economy. “It’s kind …
ImpactAlpha, July 28 – Most historically Black colleges and universities were formed during the Reconstruction era. In the more than a century since, Spelman, …
ImpactAlpha, Jun. 22 – Even as some politicians ramp up anti-ESG rhetoric, asset owners and allocators are signaling an appetite for investment strategies …
ImpactAlpha, Mar. 31 – The search for a universal metric to guide investments in racial justice and equitable wealth-building was…aspirational. “We are still a …
ImpactAlpha. Feb. 24 – “A labor market where workers have more opportunities and have more power and have more leverage is a good …
🎧 This Week in Impact. Host Brian Walsh takes up ImpactAlpha’s top stories with editor David Bank. Up this week: federal funds to …
The era of cake-ism (as in having it and eating it, too) has come to an inglorious end. “I think we’re in an …
Host Brian Walsh dives into ImpactAlpha’s top stories, with commentary from editor David Bank. Up this week: Tracking the players building the US’s …
ImpactAlpha podcasts are back! We’re pleased to share our revamped interview show, Agents of Impact, hosted by David Bank and Sherrell Dorsey, founder …
Impact(ed) is part of the ImpactAlpha Podcast Network, a set of shows hosted and produced by leading voices in impact and sustainable investing, …
On This Week in Impact, Brian Walsh dives into some of ImpactAlpha’s top stories, with commentary from editor David Bank. This week: the …
Venture capital invested nearly $500 billion in 2022. By investing into startups seeking transformational scale, successful venture-backed companies have the potential to change …
ImpactAlpha, Dec. 29 – “Net zero is not going to get us anywhere,” Ariane Mahler of Veridien Global Investors told David Bank of ImpactAlpha …
ImpactAlpha, Dec. 22 – Diverse innovators building for all customers in large industries like digital health, fintech and the future of work have been …
The numbers tell the story: overall attendance at COP28 is up threefold from last year – and the number of fossil fuel lobbyists …
Private foundations collectively control more than a trillion dollars of capital invested across a variety of traditional asset classes. A small portion of …
ImpactAlpha’s Amy Cortese speaks with Full Cycle’s Stephan Nicoleau at the start of COP 28 to hear what he’s expecting – and hoping …
(Editor’s note: In this conclusion to ImpactAlpha’s four-part Macro Impact series, contributing editor Rob Brown parses the economic signals for public and private …
Editor’s note: This guest post is sponsored by Impact Ventures by J&J Foundation, which supports ImpactAlpha’s Investing in Health coverage. In partnership with …
Editor’s Note: This article is part of a partnership between ImpactAlpha and Mission Investors Exchange (MIE) to present new ideas and perspectives in …
The way housing is financed and constructed in the United States has experienced little change in decades, leading to skyrocketing costs, barriers to …
“One million lives touched.” “800 jobs created.” “50,000 acres of land restored.” Capital allocators often see these types of punchy headlines in the …
Impact Frontier’s Impact Reporting Norms target a leverage point in the impact investing system: impact reporting. They promise to provide greater clarity and …
Ashish Kumar is a long-time climate investor and a market / ecosystem builder. He is a strategic advisor to Mati Carbon. This month, …
In one of Puerto Rico’s poorest neighborhoods, you can find what economists might call a “green shoot.” The plan for Oasis, a six-acre, …
Development finance institutions like to style themselves as the original impact investors. It was Lord Reith, the first chairman of the UK’s development …
To achieve stated climate goals, the U.S. government is embarking on what should be the largest coordination of private and public capital aimed …
In a world in which the UN SDG financing gap continues to grow, we face a double hurdle: blended finance is still struggling …
As more investment firms launch impact funds, it has become increasingly difficult for institutional allocators to identify the most qualified fund managers to …
The winner of a contest to sharpen the impact lens of students through deal sourcing and diligence was a team from London Business …
ImpactAlpha, January 26 – Ines Schiller got the idea for seaweed tampons while training in South Africa to be a marine environment guide. …
ImpactAlpha, Dec. 23 – Bold leaders. Taking action. Driving impact. That’s the tagline we’ve used for the dozens of Agents of Impact we profiled …
This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. It is republished …
Sustainable development? “More of the same.” Forest carbon credits? “Outside-imposed extraction.” Impact investing? “Are we really going far enough? Or are we just …
ImpactAlpha, September 8 — In 15 years in impact investing, Christopher Bentley noticed “a lot of for-profit companies focused on the criminal justice …
ImpactAlpha, August 18 – Monica Brand Engel’s advice to impact investors is this: Imperfect execution is ok. “Authentic impact is about accepting imperfection …
ImpactAlpha, Aug. 11 – Samuel Yeboah isn’t discouraged by the economic storm battering his home country of Ghana and many other emerging economies. “As …
Many investors look at promising new climate solutions and say, ‘Great, come back to me when you have traction.’ Azolla Ventures is more …
ImpactAlpha, June 30 – The first thing that Katherine Stodulka does when you meet her is suggest you meet someone else. Then she’ll …
ImpactAlpha, May 26 – A decade ago, investors pushed back against the loan products Jessica Espinoza was designing for female business owners as …
ImpactAlpha, May 12 – Nigeria-born climate entrepreneur and “professional nomad” Aina Abiodun is bullish on place-based climate innovation. “There is nothing more urgent than …
Good economy actually is good news as impact investors adjust to new realities. The US economy may have gone from a soft landing to no landing. Goldman Sachs this week raised its estimate of first-quarter US GDP growth to 3.1% from 2.5%, after the fourth quarter’s 3.4% and the scorching 4.9% in last year’s third quarter. Interest rate expectations have normalized, lending markets are thawing, and investor sentiment is back to positive. “This feels like a Goldilocks moment, and impact investors are sitting in Baby Bear’s chair,” ImpactAlpha contributing editor Robert Brown writes in the final article of his four-part Macro Impact series. As broad markets rally, he says, impact investors that have been bruised and frustrated should take note. “Despite the drumbeat of negative election-year rhetoric emanating from the DC echo chamber, objectively, for most investors, things look rosy.”
Innovative startups are changing the landscape of health impact everywhere. Are investors aware? While impact investment funding levels in health are low, “the need and opportunity for investment in health only grows,” write Carl Nicholas Ng and Miguel Legarda of Verge HealthTech Fund, a venture fund backed by Impact Ventures by J&J Foundation. Reach52’s digital platform, for example, connects community health workers and small pharmacies in rural areas to collect data, deliver targeted health campaigns, and make affordable health products available. More than three-quarters of unvaccinated households engaged by Reach52 received their essential childhood vaccines for Hepatitis B, polio and other diseases within a month.
Quilt raises $33 million to launch its sleek heat pump. Heat pump sales in the US are expected to ramp up, as states implement generous financial incentives in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. Even with financial support, systems can be complicated and costly to install, requiring new ducts or room-by-room “mini-split” units. California-based Quilt is launching small ductless heat pumps that can be controlled with smart thermostats. Energy Impact Partners and Galvanize Climate Solutions led Quilt’s Series A round. Other investors include Lowercarbon Capital and MCJ Collective, as well as Drew Scott, host of HGTV show Property Brothers. “As someone who has spent years transforming homes and understanding homeowners' needs, I've been eagerly waiting for a breakthrough like this,” Scott said.
Colorado is demonstrating how states can accelerate conversions to employee ownership (video). Colorado Gov. Jared Polis in 2019 created an employee ownership office to incentivize and provide support for retiring owners to exit to employees. Polis also introduced tax credits for employee ownership structures and a cash collateral program to finance conversions and provide liquidity to selling business owners. “Colorado is the first state in the country to codify the substantive characteristics of employee ownership in a way that is form-agnostic,” said Jason Wiener of the Colorado Employee Ownership Commission at the Employee Ownership Ideas Forum in Washington, DC, last week. The three-day gathering by the Aspen Institute and Rutgers showcased how federal and state policymakers can work with private investors to build an equitable and inclusive ownership economy. Employee ownership is “a big deal” and “a little bit revolutionary,” Senator Bernie Sanders told forum participants during a visit to Capitol Hill. “It suggests that people don’t have to just work for other people. They can actually own the places that they work in and be part of the decision making process.”
Appalachian Funders Network appoints Ryan Eller, previously president of Beloved Community Foundation, to executive director… Elaine Di Monaco, formerly with the Center for Public Integrity, joins The Pivot Fund as associate director of philanthropy… The Rockefeller Foundation is recruiting a foundation services office manager in Washington, DC… The Reinvestment Fund is hiring a clean energy and sustainable finance lending director… Macquarie Group Foundation’s social impact investment team is looking for an investment manager in New York.
In New Orleans, the city’s housing finance agency has become a “green bank” to underwrite community solar, water treatment projects, and resilience hubs. …
Private equity fund managers looking for value-creation opportunities are increasingly finding their way to impact themes like climate-resilient and sustainable agriculture, employee engagement …
ImpactAlpha, January 19 – Impact investors have for years debated the need for embedded structures to incentivize impact outcomes for impact fund managers. …
ImpactAlpha, Dec. 15 – The $4 trillion muni market is so big that small movements in the pricing of bonds can mean shifts of …
ImpactAlpha, November 17 – That women are more adversely affected by climate change is well established (in impact and development circles at any …
This week’s Agents of Impact Call continued a tradition started nearly a decade ago by Fran Seegull of the US Impact Investing Alliance …
ImpactAlpha, Sept. 29 – It’s the age-old struggle: labor vs capital, workers vs. owners. But what happens when employees get a stake in the …
ImpactAlpha, August 25 – A growing ecosystem of Native-led entrepreneurs, lenders, financial intermediaries and nonprofits are driving Indian Country’s emerging economy. “It’s kind …
ImpactAlpha, July 28 – Most historically Black colleges and universities were formed during the Reconstruction era. In the more than a century since, Spelman, …
ImpactAlpha, Jun. 22 – Even as some politicians ramp up anti-ESG rhetoric, asset owners and allocators are signaling an appetite for investment strategies …
ImpactAlpha, Mar. 31 – The search for a universal metric to guide investments in racial justice and equitable wealth-building was…aspirational. “We are still a …
ImpactAlpha. Feb. 24 – “A labor market where workers have more opportunities and have more power and have more leverage is a good …
🎧 This Week in Impact. Host Brian Walsh takes up ImpactAlpha’s top stories with editor David Bank. Up this week: federal funds to …
The era of cake-ism (as in having it and eating it, too) has come to an inglorious end. “I think we’re in an …
Host Brian Walsh dives into ImpactAlpha’s top stories, with commentary from editor David Bank. Up this week: Tracking the players building the US’s …
ImpactAlpha podcasts are back! We’re pleased to share our revamped interview show, Agents of Impact, hosted by David Bank and Sherrell Dorsey, founder …
Impact(ed) is part of the ImpactAlpha Podcast Network, a set of shows hosted and produced by leading voices in impact and sustainable investing, …
On This Week in Impact, Brian Walsh dives into some of ImpactAlpha’s top stories, with commentary from editor David Bank. This week: the …
Venture capital invested nearly $500 billion in 2022. By investing into startups seeking transformational scale, successful venture-backed companies have the potential to change …
ImpactAlpha, Dec. 29 – “Net zero is not going to get us anywhere,” Ariane Mahler of Veridien Global Investors told David Bank of ImpactAlpha …
ImpactAlpha, Dec. 22 – Diverse innovators building for all customers in large industries like digital health, fintech and the future of work have been …
The numbers tell the story: overall attendance at COP28 is up threefold from last year – and the number of fossil fuel lobbyists …
Private foundations collectively control more than a trillion dollars of capital invested across a variety of traditional asset classes. A small portion of …
ImpactAlpha’s Amy Cortese speaks with Full Cycle’s Stephan Nicoleau at the start of COP 28 to hear what he’s expecting – and hoping …
(Editor’s note: In this conclusion to ImpactAlpha’s four-part Macro Impact series, contributing editor Rob Brown parses the economic signals for public and private …
Editor’s note: This guest post is sponsored by Impact Ventures by J&J Foundation, which supports ImpactAlpha’s Investing in Health coverage. In partnership with …
Editor’s Note: This article is part of a partnership between ImpactAlpha and Mission Investors Exchange (MIE) to present new ideas and perspectives in …
The way housing is financed and constructed in the United States has experienced little change in decades, leading to skyrocketing costs, barriers to …
“One million lives touched.” “800 jobs created.” “50,000 acres of land restored.” Capital allocators often see these types of punchy headlines in the …
Impact Frontier’s Impact Reporting Norms target a leverage point in the impact investing system: impact reporting. They promise to provide greater clarity and …
Ashish Kumar is a long-time climate investor and a market / ecosystem builder. He is a strategic advisor to Mati Carbon. This month, …
In one of Puerto Rico’s poorest neighborhoods, you can find what economists might call a “green shoot.” The plan for Oasis, a six-acre, …
Development finance institutions like to style themselves as the original impact investors. It was Lord Reith, the first chairman of the UK’s development …
To achieve stated climate goals, the U.S. government is embarking on what should be the largest coordination of private and public capital aimed …
In a world in which the UN SDG financing gap continues to grow, we face a double hurdle: blended finance is still struggling …
As more investment firms launch impact funds, it has become increasingly difficult for institutional allocators to identify the most qualified fund managers to …
The winner of a contest to sharpen the impact lens of students through deal sourcing and diligence was a team from London Business …
ImpactAlpha, January 26 – Ines Schiller got the idea for seaweed tampons while training in South Africa to be a marine environment guide. …
ImpactAlpha, Dec. 23 – Bold leaders. Taking action. Driving impact. That’s the tagline we’ve used for the dozens of Agents of Impact we profiled …
This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. It is republished …
Sustainable development? “More of the same.” Forest carbon credits? “Outside-imposed extraction.” Impact investing? “Are we really going far enough? Or are we just …
ImpactAlpha, September 8 — In 15 years in impact investing, Christopher Bentley noticed “a lot of for-profit companies focused on the criminal justice …
ImpactAlpha, August 18 – Monica Brand Engel’s advice to impact investors is this: Imperfect execution is ok. “Authentic impact is about accepting imperfection …
ImpactAlpha, Aug. 11 – Samuel Yeboah isn’t discouraged by the economic storm battering his home country of Ghana and many other emerging economies. “As …
Many investors look at promising new climate solutions and say, ‘Great, come back to me when you have traction.’ Azolla Ventures is more …
ImpactAlpha, June 30 – The first thing that Katherine Stodulka does when you meet her is suggest you meet someone else. Then she’ll …
ImpactAlpha, May 26 – A decade ago, investors pushed back against the loan products Jessica Espinoza was designing for female business owners as …
ImpactAlpha, May 12 – Nigeria-born climate entrepreneur and “professional nomad” Aina Abiodun is bullish on place-based climate innovation. “There is nothing more urgent than …
Rich Mauro is director of capital markets at Wunder Capital, a solar fund manager in in Boulder, Co. Mauro previously was a VP in the infrastructure and energy group at Deutsche Bank.
Story Bellows joined urban-planning firm civic planning firm CityFi as a principal.
Daniel von Moltke is a managing partner at Swiss impact investment management firm Quadia.
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