The Brief

The Brief: Conservation Fund helps Atlanta preserve a hidden part of history

ImpactAlpha · April 27, 2026
Chattahoochee Brick Company | Credit: The Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation

Greetings Agents of Impact!

In today’s Brief:

  • Conservation Fund helps Atlanta preserve a hidden part of history
  • How the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta leverages local knowledge
  • Renewable energy for copper and gold mining 
  • Catalytic grants for climate tech adoption 

Chattahoochee Brick Company’s legacy of convict leasing, and future as a historical and civic asset. A 77-acre site on Atlanta’s riverfront was set to become a rail terminal for fossil fuels. Neighbors opposed it. Environmentalists opposed it. The city of Atlanta opposed it. But it was not until descendants of workers at the Chattahoochee Brick Company unearthed the site’s hidden history that a $26 million deal could be cut to preserve the site as a city park and memorial to the factory’s workers. “It’s one thing to put it in a book or have it as a marker in a museum, but to be able to preserve the site where that happened and tell the story of what happened during that era in American history is way more powerful,” says Stacy Funderburke of The Conservation Fund, which completed the 2022 deal to purchase the site and sell it to the city. After the US Civil War, thousands of people, mostly Black men, labored at the plant under horrific conditions in one of the starkest examples of the convict lease labor system, in which factory owners, aided by local law enforcement and politicians, used petty or baseless offenses to conscript workers against their will. Author Doug Blackmon has called the system “Slavery by Another Name.” 

  • Revolving funds. As part of this week’s Mission Investors Exchange conference in Atlanta, ImpactAlpha is co-hosting a dinner at the site with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which has supported our coverage of Muni Impact, homeownership preservation and shared prosperity. The foundation’s Kimberlee Cornett is on The Conservation Fund’s board. “Saving the places that tell America’s full story requires diverse coalitions, blended capital, real estate expertise and relentless perseverance,” Cornett says. ​Over 40 years, the nonprofit Conservation Fund has completed nearly $10 billion in transactions by recycling capital through several revolving funds for urban and wilderness parks and working farms and forests. “Surprise, surprise – government doesn’t move at the speed of real estate,” Funderburke says. “We are stepping out in front, acquiring those properties, and then transferring to them when the public funding comes through.” 
  • Catalytic capital. “Our biggest constraint is capital,” says Funderburke, a former corporate securities attorney. Foundations seeking to align their endowments with their philanthropic missions are an obvious source of capital, as are donor-advised funds from which clients can make investments as well as grants, he adds. In 2019, Goldman Sachs helped the fund float a 10-year, $150 million green bond to expand its financial base. Investors “know every dollar is coming back, and the fact that they can roll it again is a way to expand their impact,” Funderburke says.
  • Scaling down to scale up. The Atlanta metro region is a Black mecca and important urban center in the South, but ranks last in upward economic mobility out of the 50 largest metro areas in the country. “Real community change happens on the ground in neighborhoods, cities and regions,” writes Frank Fernandez of the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta in a separate guest post. At the Mission Investors Exchange conference, Fernandez will showcase how the community foundation, with its deep local knowledge and relationships, has been able to leverage its investments by 10x, mobilizing more than $1 billion in financing. His ask of national funders in town this week: “Join us in helping steer the trajectory of the South in a positive direction.” Read Fernandez’s full post.
  • Keep reading, “Chattahoochee Brick Factory’s legacy of convict leasing and future as a historical and civic asset,” by David Bank. 

Dealflow: Energy Transition

Inspired Evolution backs CrossBoundary’s renewable energy for mining strategy. Commercial and industrial clean energy companies are seeing increased demand for on-side energy generation as the US-Iran war drives up oil prices. Cape Town-based clean energy investor Inspired Evolution, which invests in energy transition projects in Africa, committed $40 million in CrossBoundary Energy. The funding will support solar energy and battery storage projects for the Kamoa-Kakula copper mine in the southern Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Baomahun gold mine in Sierra Leone. “Renewable energy systems can now beat the cost of diesel on a kilowatt-hour to kilowatt-hour basis, especially in the remotest regions of Africa or Australia,” CrossBoundary said in a statement. “Mines that procure energy from us today know exactly what each kilowatt-hour will cost in 15 years.” 

  • Solar integration. Commercial banks and development finance institutions are financing diesel-dependent African mining companies’ shift to renewables. CrossBoundary Energy secured $300 million in senior debt over the last two years from South Africa’s Standard Bank for commercial and industrial energy projects for companies in mining, as well as agriculture, manufacturing and real estate. Impact Fund Denmark had invested $40 million for the copper mine in DRC. CrossBoundary’s Tom Roberts told ImpactAlpha its clients are saving up to 50% in energy-related costs. The 30-megawatt solar plant for DRC’s copper mine could cut emissions by nearly 80,000 tons per year. CrossBoundary’s challenge: complex logistics in remote areas and lengthy regulatory processes in multiple jurisdictions. 

The Clean Fight nabs $1 million to boost adoption of climate tech in US communities. New York-based nonprofit The Clean Fight launched its National Deployment Grant Fund last July to make catalytic grants to startups testing their climate solutions with customers and paving the way for broader adoption. The fund, which was anchored by Builders Vision, has secured $1 million from the Rockefeller Foundation toward its $10 million goal. The funding will expand The Clean Fight’s grantmaking and disseminate learnings from the projects to other communities. “Too many clean energy solutions that could materially improve lives stall in the early stages of market adoption” said Rockefeller’s Slav Gatchev. “The Clean Fight’s National Deployment Grant Fund uses strategic grantmaking to break through that barrier.”

  • Demonstration projects. The National Deployment Grant Fund builds on the work The Clean Fight has done for six years in New York to scale energy innovation and resilience projects. The fund has made three new grants, The Clean Fight told ImpactAlpha. A $125,000 grant to Somerville, Mass.-based Transaera will support the installation of its novel heat pump air conditioning and ventilation system at a multifamily building in Washington, DC, in a head-to-head test against a conventional system. Rock Rabbit, a startup that simplifies energy incentives for installers and others, received a $50,000 grant to prove the viability of engaging small contractors who do the majority of home retrofit work. Blue Frontier will use its $75,000 grant to pilot a high-efficiency cooling system that complies with design guidelines for built environments for autistic individuals at a school in Jupiter, Fla.
  • More. 

Dealflow overflow. Investment news crossing our desks:

  • Maryland-based nuclear energy developer X-Energy raised over $1 billion in its IPO that valued it at just under $12 billion. (Energy News Beat)
  • Rubio Impact Ventures, High-Tech Gründerfonds and Kopa Ventures invested €3.3 million ($3.9 million) in Berlin-based Vrey, a provider of smart metering and billing systems for rooftop solar. (Rubio Impact Ventures)
  • Uber extended a convertible loan to Hysetco, a France-based supplier of hydrogen-powered commercial vehicles. The move will integrate hydrogen-powered taxis into Uber’s fleet. (Fuel Cell Works)
  • Brazil-based fintech Aro secured $2.5 million from ONEVC, 17Sigma, Norte Ventures, Gilgamesh and Grão VC for its AI agent that provides credit guidance for low to middle-income borrowers. (Latam Fintech)

Agents of Impact: Follow the Talent

Don’s miss these ImpactAlpha partner events:

The Democracy Fund is looking for a program officer in Washington, DC… Levoca is recruiting a senior associate for advisory and impact finance strategy… World Resources Institute is hiring a senior manager focused on the Colorado River Basin to join its Cities4Forests and Natural Infrastructure Initiative team… Climate Analytics is on the hunt for a senior climate policy analyst… The World Wildlife Fund is hiring a senior director for international financial institutions. 

👉 View (or post) impact investing jobs on ImpactAlpha’s Career Hub.

Thank you for your impact!

– April 27, 2026