Greetings Agents of Impact! Welcome to ImpactAlpha Open, a free weekly sampling of the top news and views from ImpactAlpha.
In this week’s Open:
- SpaceX, Anthropic IPOs set to unlock billions in liquidity for impact LPs
- Zambia looks to small businesses as pathway to inclusive growth
- Podcasts: George Suttles, Rini Banerjee, Fernanda Camargo
- Pride Spotlight: An enduring question from Colorful Capital
Let’s dig in. – Dennis Price
Must-Reads on ImpactAlpha
- SpaceX, Anthropic IPOs set to unlock billions in liquidity for impact LPs. The SpaceX IPOis the most recent event in a cycle of impact-oriented IPOs that could unlock billions in long-awaited liquidity for foundations and other mission-driven investors. A raft of impact LPs are set to cash in. Learn who they are, how they got in and what they might get out.
- Zambia centers small businesses in its bid for a more inclusive economy. Zambia, a country known for big mining, is turning to small business as a pathway to inclusive growth, reports ImpactAlpha’s Lucy Ngige. “When the small business sector grows, that production circulates within the ecosystem and the multiplier effect is much higher,” than any individual sector like mining, says Austin Mwape, the former deputy governor of the state-owned Bank of Zambia. See how they plan to do it.
- Community finance can close the digital divides federal programs have left open. Federal broadband funding was supposed to bring high-speed internet to all Americans. Yet some 26 million Americans have no high-speed home internet access. In a guest post, Connect Humanity’s Brian Vo argues that community finance is positioned to “catalyze an ecosystem that sustains broadband lending perpetually so communities aren’t forever exposed to the boom-and-bust cycle of public grants.” Read more to learn how to close the gap.
Sponsored by Carbon Collective 401(k) & 403(b)
Who does ImpactAlpha trust with their 401(k)? Two years ago, ImpactAlpha chose Carbon Collective as its 401(k) advisor. The San Francisco-based B-Corporation is on a mission to make funds that incorporate long-term climate reality a key component of every 401(k) plan. ImpactAlpha employees have access to a diversified range of investment options across multiple investment philosophies: climate, ESG and low-fee passive. In addition to prompt customer service, Carbon Collective offers annual live market reviews and quarterly finance 101 sessions. Says ImpactAlpha’s Zuleyma Bebell, “Carbon Collective has helped us offer employees investment choices that align with a range of values and financial goals, while making retirement planning more accessible and engaging.”
Agents of Impacts
🏃 On the move
Angeles Toledo-van den Bogaard, formerly with Achmea Investment Management, joined Columbia Threadneedle Investments as responsible investments director.
ResponsAbility brought on Iain Macdonald, previously with M&G Investments, as chief risk officer.
Boston Ujima Project welcomed Renee Hatcher of the University of Illinois Chicago’s School of Law as a solidarity economy law fellow.
The Week’s Podcasts
🎧 This Week in Impact
Host Brian Walsh takes up ImpactAlpha’s top stories with editor Jessica Pothering. Up this week: How a new playbook for shared prosperity is being written in Zambia; what SpaceX and other IPOs mean for Impact LPs and the field of impact investing; and this week’s deal spotlight focuses on investors designing nature-based investments aligned with natural cycles.
- Listen to the new episode of This Week in Impact. Get the podcast in your feed by subscribing on Apple, Spotify or YouTube.
Impact(ed): How investment committees really work
Foundations devote enormous attention to the 5% of assets they grant away, but often far less to how the rest of their endowments are invested. On the latest Impact(ed) podcast, investment committee veterans George Suttles and Rini Banerjee join hosts Rodney Foxworth and Eric Horvath to make the case that ICs, as they’re called, are one of the most powerful – and overlooked – levers for advancing foundation missions.
Women Changing Finance: Why Brazil’s next chapter in impact investing starts with local capital
Brazil’s impact investing market has come a long way since the first funds emerged more than a decade ago. On the latest Women Changing Finance, Wright Capital Wealth Management’s Fernanda Camargo joins host Krisztina Tora to reflect on the growth of Brazil’s impact ecosystem. She argues that lasting change in the country will depend on keeping more local capital invested locally.
The Week’s Spotlight: Pride
What the market taught us about LGBTQIA+ equity
As Pride month came to a close this past weekend, celebrations hit a fever pitch around the globe. Queer acceptance and visibility has been one of the great inclusion stories of the 21st century (in some countries). Even so, LGBTQIA+ people still face discrimination in housing, healthcare and finance. In 2022, such founders received less than 0.5% of venture funding. That same year, The Investment Integration Project’s William Burckart and Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management’s Megan Kashner launched Colorful Capital to test their thesis that LGBTQIA+ inequity is a market failure that creates systemic economic risk. Two years later they announced they would stop trying to raise that first fund. In a guest post on ImpactAlpha, Burckart and Kashner write for the first time publicly about the fund’s short life.
- Keep reading, “What the market taught us about LGBTQIA+ equity,” by William Burckart and Megan Kashner.
Get in the game
💼 Step up
Allied Climate Partners is looking for a managing director and a head of development and investor relations in New York or remote.
VF Corporation is hiring a senior manager for product sustainability and circularity in Stabio, Switzerland.
Symbiotics seeks a financial institutions associate in Cape Town.
🤝 Meet up
- September 8-11: Impact Minds 2026, Manaus, Brazil.
- October 12-14: SOCAP, Chicago.
*Statement by a representative of ImpactAlpha, a current Carbon Collective client (Carbon Collective serves as 3(38) investment manager for its 401(k) plan). Not compensated. A client’s experience may not be representative of others and is not indicative of future results. No material conflict of interest is known.
