The Week in impact investing: Visibility

TGIF, Agents of Impact! 

• Roundup: Disappearing words
• Podcast: Canada’s green banker PM
• Call: Climate Justice Fund’s Amir Kirkwood on the stakes in the green bank battle
• Spotlight: Food as medicine

🗣 Disappearing words. Language that is triggering to the Trump administration is being purged from government websites and documents, according to The New York Times, which provided a handy list of nearly 150 such phrases. Disappearing the words, however, won’t erase the realities they describe. To highlight (in italics) what’s at stake, we enlisted ChatGPT to help us use as many of the flagged words as possible in this week’s roundup. Clean energy investments, equitable finance, and inclusive innovation are reshaping industries and uplifting diverse communities. Elevar Equity’s “Entrepreneurial Households Index” of publicly traded companies in India suggests underappreciated and undervalued customers can be more profitable, Shefali Anand reported from Bangalore. At last week’s Collaborative for Frontier Finance gathering in Kenya, Jessica Pothering and I found that African GPs are trading out their LPs, overcoming systemic bias to attract capital from African pension funds and corporate limited partners. At SXSW, Dennis Price found that champions of equity and activism in tech are reclaiming culturally appropriate and culturally responsive narratives from systemic inequalities, the climate crisis and racial injustice. The promotion of anti-racism, gender diversity and intersectionality within this space is essential for an all-inclusive digital economy. Ensuring accessibility in AI and addressing implicit biases can upgrade the cultural competence of the sector.

Investors who recognize the disparities faced by marginalized groups, including BIPOC entrepreneurs and women, are fostering inclusivity and equity in capital markets. The allocation of capital to 100% impact-driven portfolios has demonstrated that prioritizing environmental quality and social justice can lead to strong financial returns, wrote Toniic’s Melody Jensen. This year’s IA 50 list from ImpactAssets highlights how the diverse backgrounds and perspectives of fund managers contribute to institutional success. By breaking down barriers to access, these investors are affirming their commitment to historically excluded communities – including in the Gulf of Mexico!

Far from hiding such goals, the EPA’s $20 billion in “green bank” grants explicitly advanced environmental justice and economic equality, ensuring that underserved populations, including Native American, Black and Latinx communities, are not excluded from the clean energy transition, as Amy Cortese and Isaac Silk reported. Amy and I detailed Climate United’s legal advocacy in the battle for inclusive deployment of these funds. Canada’s selection of a “green banker” to lead its ruling Liberal Party and navigate geopolitical challenges suggests how climate science can drive socioeconomic progress. The movement toward equitable finance and tech is not just about increasing diversity – it’s about dismantling discriminatory structures, enhancing inclusion, and fostering allyship across industries. We must remain vigilant against systemic inequities that threaten vulnerable populations. The road ahead demands advocacy, cultural sensitivity and an unwavering commitment to belonging for all. – David Bank

✅ Next week in DC: Breakfast with Agents of Impact. Will you be in Washington DC for next week’s Impact Capital Manager’s awards gala? Meet up with ImpactAlpha’s Zuleyma Bebell and Dennis Price, and other Agents of Impact, for breakfast on Friday, March 21, near the Hyatt Place in Georgetown (exact location TBD). Bring news and updates and we’ll share ImpactAlpha LP/GP, our new weekly newsletter, and other innovations for you and your team. Let us know if you can join!

The Week’s Podcast

🎧 This Week in Impact. Host Brian Walsh takes up ImpactAlpha’s top stories with editor David Bank. Up this week: The significance of the selection of green banker Mark Carney as Canada’s new prime minister; what’s at stake in the US’s nascent “green bank” day in court; and, why one impact fund manager says low-income customers in India are more profitable – and has collected the data to prove it.

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

The Week’s Call

‘Green bank’ groups plot next moves as EPA attempts to terminate grants (video). It’s been a head-spinning week for the US’s nascent “green bank.” The Environmental Protection Agency has escalated its attacks against nonprofit groups that were awarded $20 billion as part of the Inflation Reduction Act to establish a nationwide green lending network to reach deep into rural and underserved communities. On Tuesday, EPA chief Lee Zeldin declared he had outright terminated the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, or GGRF, awards (see “EPA raises the stakes in battle over $20 billion in green bank grants”). The move came as three of the awardees filed suit to unlock billions of dollars in funds they say have been illegally frozen in accounts held by Citibank under a financial custody agreement. “In the coming weeks, we’ll use that time to address what we think is a misrepresentation of the program, and more importantly, of the grantees in the program,” Amir Kirkwood of the Justice Climate Fund, one of eight awardees, told Sherrell Dorsey on the latest PluggedIn. 

• Purpose-built. Justice Climate Fund grew out of the Community Builders of Color, a network of community development financial institutions, nonprofits and developers. With other partners, they formed Justice Climate Fund in 2023, applying for the GGRF funding as a “purpose-built” organization. The group won $940 million for a network of nonprofit community lenders. “It’s not just about the Justice Climate Fund, it’s about over 300 community lenders underneath the Justice Climate Fund that are doing amazing work all over the country,” said Kirkwood. JCF operates in towns and rural areas where mainstream banks rarely venture. The network had already developed a pipeline of projects, including solar micro-grids to fill energy gaps, and projects that combine solar power and agriculture.
  
• Legal defense. It’s not a foregone conclusion that the program will be terminated, said Kirkwood. A federal judge will hear updated arguments next week from Climate United, a Calvert Impact-led group, in its suit against the EPA (see, “Climate United carries legal banner in battle for the green bank”). By terminating the grant agreement, Climate United says, the EPA has violated its constitutional right to due process. At a hearing this week, US District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan appeared skeptical of EPA’s claims of waste, fraud and abuse in the GGRF, ordering the agency to provide “credible evidence” to back up its claims. The Coalition for Green Capital, a network of green banks that has $5 billion frozen, filed suit against the EPA after it terminated the grants. Kirkwood challenged investors to stand with Climate Justice Fund and other awardees to identify solutions. He noted that the EPA this week closed its climate justice offices. “That doesn’t change the fact that there is a climate crisis. That does not change the fact that there’s an infrastructure-need crisis. That does not change the fact that capital does not necessarily flow to these communities,” he said. “This is where impact investors and CDFIs have a great opportunity for partnership.”
  
• Read the recap – and watch the replay.

The Week’s Spotlight

Food is medicine. You are what you eat. As the American diet has shifted toward highly processed foods, chronic disease has skyrocketed. The US spends more than $1 trillion a year to treat chronic, diet-related diseases – equal to its citizens’ total yearly food bill. Some 60% of adults have at least one diet-related disease. Under the banner, “Food is Medicine,” healthcare providers, philanthropies, government agencies and local farmers are delivering medically prescribed or supportive meals and groceries to hospitals, schools and communities. “Medical practitioners have few tools for addressing diet,” said Noah Cohen-Cline of the Rockefeller Foundation, which supports Food is Medicine research, policy advocacy and infrastructure. Such interventions could avert six million hospitalizations annually, Rockefeller says, and save a net $13.6 billion a year, or $185 billion over a decade. Other funders in the space include the Lydia B. Stokes Foundation and Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield Foundation. 

• Healthy vets. In January, Rockefeller allocated an additional $80 million over five years to advance Food is Medicine programs in the US, bringing its total commitment to $100 million. A pilot with the Department of Veterans Affairs is bringing nutritional interventions to veterans. In Texas and Utah, the foundation has worked with About Fresh and the University of Utah to enroll nearly 550 vets and offer nutritional counseling and monthly $100 grocery cards for purchasing fruit and vegetables. This week, Rockefeller expanded the pilot to Maryland, North Carolina and New York, where it aims to support as many as 1.7 million veterans.
   
• Local farmers. Last month, Rockefeller awarded $3.5 million to seven organizations working to advance research, support local farmers and stem rising healthcare costs. One grantee, Adelante Mujeres, provides food-based interventions to prevent, manage and treat diet-related disease in Latino and immigrant communities. In Virginia, 4P Foods distributes local, sustainably grown food to families enrolled in produce prescription and nutrition assistance programs. 4P Foods is one of the companies affected by the US Department of Agriculture’s decision this week to terminate grants to states to help school districts, food banks and distribution hubs purchase food from local farmers.
  
• MAHA. Food as Medicine has gained bipartisan support. Rockefeller held an event on Capital Hill this week with Democratic Representative Shelly Pingree of Maine and Republican Vern Buchanan of Florida, a co-founder of the Make America Healthy Again, or MAHA, Caucus, to share updates on its VA pilots (see, “Sustainable food and ag investors line up to Make America Healthy Again”). “We are encouraged by growing bipartisan support for these interventions, including efforts that are seeking to connect Food is Medicine to farmers,” Cohen-Cline said. “We’re hoping this as a space where we’ll be able to continue working with policymakers to establish these as a health benefit for patients but also an economic benefit for farmers.”
  
• Keep reading, and catch up on all of this week’s dealflow reporting.

The Week’s 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.

Marla Blow was named CEO of the Skoll Foundation, succeeding Don Gips… Julia Wilkinson, a former partner at Social Venture Partners, became managing partner of Lebec, a woman-led innovative finance and philanthropy advisory firm… Roc USA appointed Fernando Rivera as sustainability manager of construction and development… Sabrina Lee Sanchez joined Acumen as its private partnerships director.

Illa Burbank, previously with iFyber, became executive director of the North Carolina Employee Ownership Center… JFFVentures added Blackstone’s Molly Pearl and Hilton’s Elizabeth Lane to its corporate innovation council, made up of leaders from Jobs for the Future’s corporate network to support JFFVentures’ portfolio companies… National Cooperative Bank welcomed Royce Kim, previously a commercial credit analyst with Heritage Financial Credit Union, as a capital markets analyst.

And finally, ImpactAlpha’s David Bank received an honorable mention in the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing’s 2024 Best in Business awards, for “Best range of work” (small division). The judges’ commented: “David carries his strong voice across multiple platforms, from essays and newsletters to podcast/video interviewing and documentary producing. His work and his influence as an editorial team leader reward readers with definitive insights on impact investing.”

That’s a wrap. Have a wonderful weekend. 

– March 14, 2025