The Brief

The Week in impact investing: Marching on

ImpactAlpha ¡ May 2, 2025

TGIF, Agents of Impact! 

In today’s Brief: 

  • Roundup: Quiet progress
  • Podcast: Tom Steyer’s buying opportunity + Impact(ed) and Activest
  • The Call: Plays in the playbook for shared prosperity

🗣 Quiet progress. Shhhh! Don’t tell you-know-who, but investing for social impact, sustainable development, climate action and, yes, diversity, equity and inclusion is continuing, outperforming and attracting ever-greater mandates from investors of all sizes. You just may not be hearing as much about it (except on ImpactAlpha). Marketplace practitioners are keeping their heads down to avoid opposition, litigation or worse. “What we need to avoid is letting this continuing threat and instability freeze action,” VentureESG’s Johannes Lenhard wrote in a guest post. He made the case for selective “hushing”: “The action (and reporting) continues but you choose not to tell everyone about it – only those that want to know.” The managers of 264 impact debt and equity instruments in Canada, for example, told Toronto-based SVX that at least two-thirds are notching returns at market rate or better, Dennis Price reported. “During a period of volatility, we believe more investors will be seeking a balanced investment strategy generating positive local and global impact and solid financial returns,” said SVX’s Adam Spence.

Freedom to invest means the freedom to iterate and adapt as well. The rising rates of defaults on pay-as-you-go solar in Africa may point to the need for simple changes, such as flexible terms adapted to farmers’ cash flows, as Lucy Ngige detailed. Jessica Pothering has been tracking the digitalization of small businesses trend since it exploded in the pandemic. This week, she reported that many of the tech platforms don’t yet match the realities of informal businesses in emerging markets. Still, models adapted for local realities can drive rural resilience, as Acumen’s Virgilio Barco, shared from a survey of businesses in one of the toughest business environments: Colombia, before and after the 2016 peace agreement that ended decades of armed conflict. And big challenges, of course, can mean even bigger opportunities for the growing number of impact fund managers in place like Brazil. “It’s possible to deliver strong returns with impact,” Lightrock’s Tatiana Sasson told Dennis in a video interview.

Whether they’re loud or quiet, Agents of Impact are using all the tools in the toolkit. Dario Parziale of the impact investor network Toniic described how a half-dozen members used a multi-donor advised fund at ImpactAssets to invest in the Global Fund for Coral Reefs to protect coastal ecosystems. In our one-on-one last week, Galvanize’s Tom Steyer told me how he’s taking advantage of a buying opportunity to double down on cheaper, faster, better climate solutions that are commanding customer support. “It is going to make your life better,” Steyer said. 

That’s the goal as well of the growing number of plays that are filling ImpactAlpha’s “Playbook for shared prosperity” (add your own). ImpactAlpha contributing editor Napoleon Wallace kicked off his Re:Construction column by highlighting ventures that are reimagining property ownership “through a fusion economics lens – blending innovation, equity and investor alignment to unlock access for those historically shut out.” Roodgally Senatus and I rounded up promising plays to increase economic mobility for workers, preserve home ownership, and more. On this week’s Agents of Impact Call (see below), Lafayette Square’s Damien Dwin declared the provision of capital and services to working-class people and working-class places, “the biggest domestic investment opportunity of our lifetime.” Enough with the hushing: Let’s shout that from the rooftops. – David Bank 

The Week’s Podcast

🎧 This Week in Impact. Host Brian Walsh takes up ImpactAlpha’s top stories with editor David Bank. Up this week: Some initial entries in the playbook for shared prosperity. How inflation and economic instability is affecting pay-as-you-go financing in off-grid solar. And, why Tom Steyer sees now as a buying opportunity for climate investors with dry powder to deploy.

🗺️ The Activest Podcast: The origins of Next World Assets, part two. Activest was created in response to police killings and the extractive nature of fines and fees in places like Ferguson, Mo. The Activest spinoff, Next World Assets, was created to answer the question: What if the powers-that-be instead used huge municipal investments to make people’s lives better and easier. The origin story continues with part two. 

🧑🏽‍🎓 Impact(ed): Season Two preview. Hosts Eric Horvath and Lucas Turner-Owens launched the Impact(ed) podcast to highlight the work of BIPOC investment professionals and to inspire others to join the field. In a brief trailer, the pair preview their second season, which features conversations with Todd Leverette of Apis & Heritage, Kim Lyle of Dorchester Bay Economic Development Corporation, Alicia Delia of Delia Impact Advisors, and other Agents of Impact. While you wait for the first episode to drop next week, catch up on Impact(ed)’s first season and be sure to subscribe wherever you listen.

Next Week’s Call

⚡ PluggedIn: Building equity for underinvested business owners. Shared equity strategies can help low-wealth business owners buy the commercial properties where they operate. The appreciating asset value can build generational wealth or be leveraged for growth capital. Partners in Equity’s Talib Graves-Manns and Wilson Lester join ImpactAlpha’s Sherrell Dorsey to discuss how they are channeling capital to foster Black entrepreneurship, and build equity for empowerment and resilience. Tuesday, May 6 at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm London. RSVP now.

The Week’s Call

Worker solutions, community insurance and other strategies for shared prosperity (video). Capital and services for businesses that employ working-class people in working-class places equals impact, says Damien Dwin of Washington, DC-based Lafayette Square. “Increasing the number of high-quality jobs – good income and benefits – is really the first step in shared prosperity,” Dwin said on this week’s Agents of Impact Call. Lafayette Square’s goals, “meet the moment,” he said, and see that “employees are centered and receive better benefits because it’s good for the enterprise.” Other featured plays in ImpactAlpha’s growing “Playbook for shared prosperity” are tools to manage and preserve homeownership as a vehicle for intergenerational wealth, and community-embedded insurance to help residents weather emergencies and capture the economic value of their climate resilience efforts.

  • Homeownership preservation. Daniel Smith has built Keepingly, a digital platform for first-time and low-income homeowners to track and document the maintenance of their properties. Charlie Sidoti’s InnSure helps climate-vulnerable communities identify and mitigate risks that may spike premiums and lead to the loss of coverage. InnSure is experimenting with “community embedded insurance” – group purchases through homeowners associations or municipal governments that can improve access to insurance and lower premiums. “Right now about 50% or more of catastrophe risk is uninsured,” Sidoti said. InnSure is working to make sure risk financing is “done in a way that closes that protection gap.” Beyond economic security comes empowerment. Home “is not just the place where you feel good. It’s the place where you need to be able to take out the equity. You need to be able to take out a loan. You need to be able to send your kids to school,” Smith said. “We need to be thinking of your home like that.”
  • Targeted universalism. Pathways to shared prosperity can bring communities together. “One of the issues we look at is how do we do this equitably across races,” said Andrea Levere of Capitalize Good. “How do we broaden those categories so we have benefits that accrue to everyone but don’t forget the specific barriers that exist because of race.” Just as sidewalk curb cuts designed for wheelchairs help parents with strollers and delivery people with carts, solutions that uplift communities of color also benefit white communities and the broader economy. Capitalize Good is helping even nonprofit businesses tap capital markets for flexible and long-term capital. Such philanthropic equity, or “enterprise capital,” Levere said, could “unleash nonprofit power and potential to create a more just, equitable and sustainable future for all.”

The Week’s Dealflow, Talent and Jobs

💼 See and share more than a dozen new impact jobs posted this week on ImpactAlpha’s Career Hub and view hundreds of more jobs in impact investing and sustainable finance. Have a job listing to post? Submit it here. And check out all this week’s dealflow reporting.

CapShift promoted Liz Sessler to president and chief operating officer… Montauk Climate tapped Matt Bisgyer, previously with Energy Impact Partners, as principal… The Institute for Sustainable Finance at Queen’s University’s Smith School of Business appointed Thomas Walker as executive director… KC Boas, previously with BlackRock, joined the Aspen Institute’s financial security team as a retirement savings initiative lead.

Matthew Epperson, a former executive director of the Georgia Cooperative Development Center, joined the Georgia Center for Employee Ownership as a local outreach coordinator… Phenix Capital welcomed Rikkert Beerekamp, formerly with Aqua-Spark, as chief investment officer… Kate Cochran, who stepped down as CEO of Upaya Social Ventures last year, joined Valtas Group as a senior consultant.

The Workforce & Organizational Research Center, or WORC, welcomed Ownership Works’ Anna-Lisa Miller as an advisory board member… Devon Wolfe, previously with Rothschild & Co., joined Social Finance as an impact investment associate in its New York office… The Vistria Group added Ruby Shi, formerly with Brookfield, and James Wreschner, formerly with Jonathan Rose Companies, as real estate associates. It also added Jim DeGrado, previously with Diversified Financial Management Corp., as fund accounting manager.

That’s a wrap. Have a wonderful weekend. 

– May 2, 2025