The Week in impact investing: Stepping out

🎃 TGIF, Agents of Impact! Happy Hallowe’en!

• Roundup: First responders
• Podcast: Dennis Price shares SOCAP vibes with Brian Walsh
• SOCAP’s “Best Dressed” take on shared prosperity
• Pop Impact review: The Lost Bus

🗣 Surviving and thriving. Boldness and defiance were on stage at this week’s SOCAP conference in San Francisco. “Tone it down means we’ve got to shut it down,” VertueLab’s Aina Abiodun says to those who want her to scrub her website. “We do not shy away from the fact that we are committed to equity and justice and climate,” she declared in a fiery session on “Surviving four more years,” moderated by David Bank. Last week, we called the resurgence of impact-first investing. This week, usually-stealth impact-first family office investors speed dated in the California sunshine. Bronze Venture Fund’s Stephen DeBerry urged attendees to come out as impact investors. “Claim it,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with loving our society, taking care of our planet and caring for each other.” The gathering was slightly smaller than in past years but had a pragmatic and determined feel. “We meet at a time when the challenges before us are urgent and undeniable,” Sorenson Impact’s Jim Sorenson said on SOCAP’s first day. “Each of us has a role to play – as investors, entrepreneurs, policymakers, philanthropists or storytellers – in shaping a capitalism that serves humanity more than the other way around. This isn’t someone else’s responsibility. It’s ours.” 

Those challenges were acutely felt at the Opportunity Finance Network’s conference last week. “The tests have been relentless,” OFN’s Harold Pettigrew told the gathering of community lenders, who welcomed bipartisan support in defense of the Treasury Department’s CDFI Fund, a target for elimination by the Trump administration. “Confidence and uncertainty are not countervailing points,” Pettigrew said. “They must exist simultaneously.” In this fraught environment, Zevin Asset Management’s Marcela Pinilla and Philip Hergel made the case in a guest post that immigration is an asset, not a liability, for investors and the economy. Eric Glass of Clarion Call Capital challenged investors to reclaim the purpose of municipal bonds by rejecting issues that fund harmful projects, such as prisons, “and invest instead in infrastructure that spurs societal and environmental benefit.” 

There’s also uncertainty behind the excitement around artificial intelligence and biotechnology. Biotech VCs must invest in biosafety and biosecurity, Helia Samani and Aparupa Sengupta of the Nuclear Threat Initiative argued in a guest post. As capital floods into AI, responsible investors must manage near-term risks and shape markets for the long-term, wrote Paul Fehlinger of the Project Liberty Institute. US SIF came out with a guide to help investors mitigate the investment risks for energy transition projects on Indigenous lands, Erik Stein reported. With 100 deals under his belt, Iungo Capital’s Roeland Donckers is demonstrating the commercial viability of lending to African small businesses, as Lucy Ngige reported. The upside of a dearth of private equity is that some private equity firms are focusing on employees as centers of value creation rather than costs to be cut, as David wrote in this week’s LP/GP newsletter. Confidently, if cautiously, Agents of Impact are stepping out, stepping up and shaping what’s to come. – Dennis Price

The Week’s Podcast

🎧 This Week in Impact. Host Brian Walsh takes up the week’s top stories with Dennis Price. Up for discussion: What’s on the minds of innovators and investors at SOCAP; building bipartisan support for community lenders; and, investing with and in AI for due diligence and impact.

• Listen to the new episode of This Week in Impact. Get the podcast in your feed by subscribing on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube.

The Week’s Agents of Impact

SOCAP’s ‘Best Dressed’ on what shared prosperity means to them. SOCAP25’s theme may have been “Making impact mainstream,” but the fashion on display in San Francisco was anything but normcore. In our annual SOCAP tradition, ImpactAlpha photographed Agents of Impact who expressed their values with their outfits. ImpactAlpha co-founder and fashion icon Zuleyma Bebell asked these fashion-forward Agents of Impact what shared prosperity means to them. “Shared prosperity means collective and ancestral abundance,” said Coded by’s Charney Robinson-Williams. “To know that no matter the circumstances, you always have the support and resources within your community.” Agents of Impact are all fabulous, of course. These 18 SOCAP attendees stood out. Big thanks to Sofía Cándano of Village Capital and Nicole Lasasso of SOCAP Global, who helped scout the gardens and hallways.

• Keep reading, “SOCAP’s ‘Best Dressed’ on what shared prosperity means to them,” by Zuleyma Bebell.

Weekend Watching: Pop Impact

The Lost Bus: When climate disaster hits home. Many people have memories of riding a school bus. “I’m willing to bet relatively few of those memories involve navigating a blazing inferno through gridlocked traffic, deadly power lines, and mobs of desperate residents,” writes Pop Impact columnist Dmitriy Ioselevich. Such memories will stick with students at Ponderosa elementary school in Paradise, Calif., which burned along with more than 18,000 other structures in the devastating 2018 Camp Fire, the deadliest wildfire in California history. The plight of these 22 stranded students and their heroic bus driver is the provocative set up for “The Lost Bus”, an Apple TV thriller directed by Paul Greengrass. The film has “all the makings of a Hollywood blockbuster,” Dmitriy writes. “The fact that it’s based on a true story makes it all the more compelling for viewers and critics alike.” Dmitriy’s rating: Entertainment: 5, Impact: 4.

• Read the whole review. 

The Week’s Dealflow, Talent and Jobs

💼 See and share 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. Catch up on all of this week’s dealflow reporting.

Convergence Partners tapped Shirley Choo, previously with Algoritmi Group, as an investment director and committee member… Aurum Impact welcomed Marie-Therese Buttlar-Wallot, a former principal with Earlybird Venture Capital, as a partner… The ImPact named Olivia Prentice, formerly with Bridges Fund Management and Impact Management Project, as CEO, succeeding Sam Bonsey. 

Ownership Works added Nik Engineer, former chief partnerships officer of the GIIN, as senior director of partnerships… Women for Women International tapped Thelma Ekiyor, previously with the Nigeria Philanthropy Office as CEO… Acumen America welcomed Lily Brown, a recent MBA graduate of UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, as partnerships and operations associate.

That’s a wrap. Have a wonderful weekend.

– Oct. 31, 2025