In Puerto Rico, mobilizing billions for economic mobility with capital from across the spectrum. Puerto Rico has a window in which to turn disaster recovery into economic revival. “We didn’t choose it, but this is our time,” declares Eduardo Carrera, founder of Platform for Social Impact, which aims to steer capital to Puerto Rico’s social infrastructure. In front of hundreds of social innovators and financial engineers in downtown San Juan earlier this month, Carrera unveiled a clock that is counting down to a 10-year deadline for progress. The urgency is a response to the frustration over the Caribbean island’s lingering economic woes years after Hurricane Maria and other disasters. Some $85 billion in US federal aid and recovery funds remain on the sidelines, even as nearly 60% of children live in poverty. Many proponents of a Puerto Rico with good jobs, safe neighborhoods and strong role models, Carrera says “have left intentionality to chance.” At the Platform for Social Impact’s Nexa Summit, Carrera laid out an economic agenda that centers children to end intergenerational poverty. “When children bloom, everybody benefits,” he says.
RSF Social Finance adds trio of ‘high-impact social enterprises’ to its loan portfolio. The San Francisco-based fund manager drew capital from a social investment fund to allocate a combined $5.5 million to three organizations supporting alternative ownership, climate and the environment, and natural products, said RSF’s Michael Jones. RSF provided a $3 million loan to Cambridge, Mass.-based Sunwealth for a portfolio of solar installations in California, Maine and New Jersey. The solar projects are projected to save about $11 million in lifetime energy costs and to create more than 100 green jobs. Sunwealth, RSF’s biggest borrower with $13 million, is raising a $60 million solar justice fund for local solar developers and installers of rooftop and parking lot projects. In a separate deal, RSF purchased $1.5 million of a $2.5 million revolving line of credit from Walden Savings Bank on behalf of 88 Acres. 88Acres will use the loan to deliver on a contract with Delta Airlines for zero-waste, health-conscious snack bars.
Latin American family offices add investing tools to their philanthropic toolkits. The Gerdau Johannpeter family in Brazil has allocated 20% of the family fund to impact investments. In Colombia, the Sesana family has created Asiri, an impact fund manager with investments in renewable energy, financial inclusion and agricultural technology. The Sánchez Navarro family in Mexico has complemented its traditional philanthropic approach with impact investments (Felipe Fernández Sánchez is a co-founder of CO_Capital). “The experiences of these family offices in the region strengthen the hypothesis that impact investing, far from replacing philanthropy, seeks to strengthen and complement it,” Latimpacto’s Manuela Jiménez López writes in a guest post. Three-quarters of Latin American organizations that prioritize impact also sought financial returns on their investments, according to a Latimpacto survey.
Ayah Abulghanam, previously with USAID, joins Mercy Corps Ventures as a program officer… Radhika Fox, previously with the US Environmental Protection Agency, is joining the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s impact investments team as a strategic advisor… Dalberg promotes James Eustace to partner and Europe regional director… New York Community Trust is on the hunt for an arts and culture and historic preservation program officer… New York City Economic Development Corp. seeks an assistant vice president.
In New Orleans, the city’s housing finance agency has become a “green bank” to underwrite community solar, water treatment projects, and resilience hubs. …
Private equity fund managers looking for value-creation opportunities are increasingly finding their way to impact themes like climate-resilient and sustainable agriculture, employee engagement …
ImpactAlpha, January 19 – Impact investors have for years debated the need for embedded structures to incentivize impact outcomes for impact fund managers. …
ImpactAlpha, Dec. 15 – The $4 trillion muni market is so big that small movements in the pricing of bonds can mean shifts of …
ImpactAlpha, November 17 – That women are more adversely affected by climate change is well established (in impact and development circles at any …
This week’s Agents of Impact Call continued a tradition started nearly a decade ago by Fran Seegull of the US Impact Investing Alliance …
ImpactAlpha, Sept. 29 – It’s the age-old struggle: labor vs capital, workers vs. owners. But what happens when employees get a stake in the …
ImpactAlpha, August 25 – A growing ecosystem of Native-led entrepreneurs, lenders, financial intermediaries and nonprofits are driving Indian Country’s emerging economy. “It’s kind …
ImpactAlpha, July 28 – Most historically Black colleges and universities were formed during the Reconstruction era. In the more than a century since, Spelman, …
ImpactAlpha, Jun. 22 – Even as some politicians ramp up anti-ESG rhetoric, asset owners and allocators are signaling an appetite for investment strategies …
ImpactAlpha, Mar. 31 – The search for a universal metric to guide investments in racial justice and equitable wealth-building was…aspirational. “We are still a …
ImpactAlpha. Feb. 24 – “A labor market where workers have more opportunities and have more power and have more leverage is a good …
When one door closes, another one opens. For Zarû Systems’ Loren Taylor, that second door may open onto a self-contained modular vertical farm …
🎧 This Week in Impact. Host Brian Walsh takes up ImpactAlpha’s top stories with editor David Bank. Up this week: federal funds to …
The era of cake-ism (as in having it and eating it, too) has come to an inglorious end. “I think we’re in an …
Host Brian Walsh dives into ImpactAlpha’s top stories, with commentary from editor David Bank. Up this week: Tracking the players building the US’s …
ImpactAlpha podcasts are back! We’re pleased to share our revamped interview show, Agents of Impact, hosted by David Bank and Sherrell Dorsey, founder …
Impact(ed) is part of the ImpactAlpha Podcast Network, a set of shows hosted and produced by leading voices in impact and sustainable investing, …
On This Week in Impact, Brian Walsh dives into some of ImpactAlpha’s top stories, with commentary from editor David Bank. This week: the …
Venture capital invested nearly $500 billion in 2022. By investing into startups seeking transformational scale, successful venture-backed companies have the potential to change …
ImpactAlpha, Dec. 29 – “Net zero is not going to get us anywhere,” Ariane Mahler of Veridien Global Investors told David Bank of ImpactAlpha …
ImpactAlpha, Dec. 22 – Diverse innovators building for all customers in large industries like digital health, fintech and the future of work have been …
The numbers tell the story: overall attendance at COP28 is up threefold from last year – and the number of fossil fuel lobbyists …
Private foundations collectively control more than a trillion dollars of capital invested across a variety of traditional asset classes. A small portion of …
Latin America is witnessing a transformative trend in family office philanthropy: the shift towards impact investing. Traditionally, philanthropy in the region has been …
Rural economic development is a complex issue, including in Colombia. Rural regions are often culturally diverse areas, but have limited access to quality …
This article is part of a partnership between ImpactAlpha and Mission Investors Exchange (MIE) to present new ideas and perspectives in impact investing. …
This article is part of a partnership between ImpactAlpha and Mission Investors Exchange (MIE) to present new ideas and perspectives in impact investing. …
This article is part of a partnership between ImpactAlpha and Mission Investors Exchange (MIE) to present new ideas and perspectives in impact investing. …
In the realm of AI discourse, much attention is directed towards fostering responsible development of the technology itself (e.g. Is it free from …
Developing an investment strategy that meets our fiduciary requirements as resource stewards, embodies our racial justice values, and prioritizes the communities we serve …
(Editor’s note: In this conclusion to ImpactAlpha’s four-part Macro Impact series, contributing editor Rob Brown parses the economic signals for public and private …
Editor’s note: This guest post is sponsored by Impact Ventures by J&J Foundation, which supports ImpactAlpha’s Investing in Health coverage. In partnership with …
Editor’s Note: This article is part of a partnership between ImpactAlpha and Mission Investors Exchange (MIE) to present new ideas and perspectives in …
The way housing is financed and constructed in the United States has experienced little change in decades, leading to skyrocketing costs, barriers to …
“One million lives touched.” “800 jobs created.” “50,000 acres of land restored.” Capital allocators often see these types of punchy headlines in the …
The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund is seeding green projects in primarily low-income communities by sending $27 billion through a network of nonprofit lenders. …
The winner of a contest to sharpen the impact lens of students through deal sourcing and diligence was a team from London Business …
ImpactAlpha, January 26 – Ines Schiller got the idea for seaweed tampons while training in South Africa to be a marine environment guide. …
ImpactAlpha, Dec. 23 – Bold leaders. Taking action. Driving impact. That’s the tagline we’ve used for the dozens of Agents of Impact we profiled …
This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. It is republished …
Sustainable development? “More of the same.” Forest carbon credits? “Outside-imposed extraction.” Impact investing? “Are we really going far enough? Or are we just …
ImpactAlpha, September 8 — In 15 years in impact investing, Christopher Bentley noticed “a lot of for-profit companies focused on the criminal justice …
ImpactAlpha, August 18 – Monica Brand Engel’s advice to impact investors is this: Imperfect execution is ok. “Authentic impact is about accepting imperfection …
ImpactAlpha, Aug. 11 – Samuel Yeboah isn’t discouraged by the economic storm battering his home country of Ghana and many other emerging economies. “As …
Many investors look at promising new climate solutions and say, ‘Great, come back to me when you have traction.’ Azolla Ventures is more …
ImpactAlpha, June 30 – The first thing that Katherine Stodulka does when you meet her is suggest you meet someone else. Then she’ll …
ImpactAlpha, May 26 – A decade ago, investors pushed back against the loan products Jessica Espinoza was designing for female business owners as …
In Puerto Rico, mobilizing billions for economic mobility with capital from across the spectrum. Puerto Rico has a window in which to turn disaster recovery into economic revival. “We didn’t choose it, but this is our time,” declares Eduardo Carrera, founder of Platform for Social Impact, which aims to steer capital to Puerto Rico’s social infrastructure. In front of hundreds of social innovators and financial engineers in downtown San Juan earlier this month, Carrera unveiled a clock that is counting down to a 10-year deadline for progress. The urgency is a response to the frustration over the Caribbean island’s lingering economic woes years after Hurricane Maria and other disasters. Some $85 billion in US federal aid and recovery funds remain on the sidelines, even as nearly 60% of children live in poverty. Many proponents of a Puerto Rico with good jobs, safe neighborhoods and strong role models, Carrera says “have left intentionality to chance.” At the Platform for Social Impact’s Nexa Summit, Carrera laid out an economic agenda that centers children to end intergenerational poverty. “When children bloom, everybody benefits,” he says.
RSF Social Finance adds trio of ‘high-impact social enterprises’ to its loan portfolio. The San Francisco-based fund manager drew capital from a social investment fund to allocate a combined $5.5 million to three organizations supporting alternative ownership, climate and the environment, and natural products, said RSF’s Michael Jones. RSF provided a $3 million loan to Cambridge, Mass.-based Sunwealth for a portfolio of solar installations in California, Maine and New Jersey. The solar projects are projected to save about $11 million in lifetime energy costs and to create more than 100 green jobs. Sunwealth, RSF’s biggest borrower with $13 million, is raising a $60 million solar justice fund for local solar developers and installers of rooftop and parking lot projects. In a separate deal, RSF purchased $1.5 million of a $2.5 million revolving line of credit from Walden Savings Bank on behalf of 88 Acres. 88Acres will use the loan to deliver on a contract with Delta Airlines for zero-waste, health-conscious snack bars.
Latin American family offices add investing tools to their philanthropic toolkits. The Gerdau Johannpeter family in Brazil has allocated 20% of the family fund to impact investments. In Colombia, the Sesana family has created Asiri, an impact fund manager with investments in renewable energy, financial inclusion and agricultural technology. The Sánchez Navarro family in Mexico has complemented its traditional philanthropic approach with impact investments (Felipe Fernández Sánchez is a co-founder of CO_Capital). “The experiences of these family offices in the region strengthen the hypothesis that impact investing, far from replacing philanthropy, seeks to strengthen and complement it,” Latimpacto’s Manuela Jiménez López writes in a guest post. Three-quarters of Latin American organizations that prioritize impact also sought financial returns on their investments, according to a Latimpacto survey.
Ayah Abulghanam, previously with USAID, joins Mercy Corps Ventures as a program officer… Radhika Fox, previously with the US Environmental Protection Agency, is joining the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s impact investments team as a strategic advisor… Dalberg promotes James Eustace to partner and Europe regional director… New York Community Trust is on the hunt for an arts and culture and historic preservation program officer… New York City Economic Development Corp. seeks an assistant vice president.
In New Orleans, the city’s housing finance agency has become a “green bank” to underwrite community solar, water treatment projects, and resilience hubs. …
Private equity fund managers looking for value-creation opportunities are increasingly finding their way to impact themes like climate-resilient and sustainable agriculture, employee engagement …
ImpactAlpha, January 19 – Impact investors have for years debated the need for embedded structures to incentivize impact outcomes for impact fund managers. …
ImpactAlpha, Dec. 15 – The $4 trillion muni market is so big that small movements in the pricing of bonds can mean shifts of …
ImpactAlpha, November 17 – That women are more adversely affected by climate change is well established (in impact and development circles at any …
This week’s Agents of Impact Call continued a tradition started nearly a decade ago by Fran Seegull of the US Impact Investing Alliance …
ImpactAlpha, Sept. 29 – It’s the age-old struggle: labor vs capital, workers vs. owners. But what happens when employees get a stake in the …
ImpactAlpha, August 25 – A growing ecosystem of Native-led entrepreneurs, lenders, financial intermediaries and nonprofits are driving Indian Country’s emerging economy. “It’s kind …
ImpactAlpha, July 28 – Most historically Black colleges and universities were formed during the Reconstruction era. In the more than a century since, Spelman, …
ImpactAlpha, Jun. 22 – Even as some politicians ramp up anti-ESG rhetoric, asset owners and allocators are signaling an appetite for investment strategies …
ImpactAlpha, Mar. 31 – The search for a universal metric to guide investments in racial justice and equitable wealth-building was…aspirational. “We are still a …
ImpactAlpha. Feb. 24 – “A labor market where workers have more opportunities and have more power and have more leverage is a good …
When one door closes, another one opens. For Zarû Systems’ Loren Taylor, that second door may open onto a self-contained modular vertical farm …
🎧 This Week in Impact. Host Brian Walsh takes up ImpactAlpha’s top stories with editor David Bank. Up this week: federal funds to …
The era of cake-ism (as in having it and eating it, too) has come to an inglorious end. “I think we’re in an …
Host Brian Walsh dives into ImpactAlpha’s top stories, with commentary from editor David Bank. Up this week: Tracking the players building the US’s …
ImpactAlpha podcasts are back! We’re pleased to share our revamped interview show, Agents of Impact, hosted by David Bank and Sherrell Dorsey, founder …
Impact(ed) is part of the ImpactAlpha Podcast Network, a set of shows hosted and produced by leading voices in impact and sustainable investing, …
On This Week in Impact, Brian Walsh dives into some of ImpactAlpha’s top stories, with commentary from editor David Bank. This week: the …
Venture capital invested nearly $500 billion in 2022. By investing into startups seeking transformational scale, successful venture-backed companies have the potential to change …
ImpactAlpha, Dec. 29 – “Net zero is not going to get us anywhere,” Ariane Mahler of Veridien Global Investors told David Bank of ImpactAlpha …
ImpactAlpha, Dec. 22 – Diverse innovators building for all customers in large industries like digital health, fintech and the future of work have been …
The numbers tell the story: overall attendance at COP28 is up threefold from last year – and the number of fossil fuel lobbyists …
Private foundations collectively control more than a trillion dollars of capital invested across a variety of traditional asset classes. A small portion of …
Latin America is witnessing a transformative trend in family office philanthropy: the shift towards impact investing. Traditionally, philanthropy in the region has been …
Rural economic development is a complex issue, including in Colombia. Rural regions are often culturally diverse areas, but have limited access to quality …
This article is part of a partnership between ImpactAlpha and Mission Investors Exchange (MIE) to present new ideas and perspectives in impact investing. …
This article is part of a partnership between ImpactAlpha and Mission Investors Exchange (MIE) to present new ideas and perspectives in impact investing. …
This article is part of a partnership between ImpactAlpha and Mission Investors Exchange (MIE) to present new ideas and perspectives in impact investing. …
In the realm of AI discourse, much attention is directed towards fostering responsible development of the technology itself (e.g. Is it free from …
Developing an investment strategy that meets our fiduciary requirements as resource stewards, embodies our racial justice values, and prioritizes the communities we serve …
(Editor’s note: In this conclusion to ImpactAlpha’s four-part Macro Impact series, contributing editor Rob Brown parses the economic signals for public and private …
Editor’s note: This guest post is sponsored by Impact Ventures by J&J Foundation, which supports ImpactAlpha’s Investing in Health coverage. In partnership with …
Editor’s Note: This article is part of a partnership between ImpactAlpha and Mission Investors Exchange (MIE) to present new ideas and perspectives in …
The way housing is financed and constructed in the United States has experienced little change in decades, leading to skyrocketing costs, barriers to …
“One million lives touched.” “800 jobs created.” “50,000 acres of land restored.” Capital allocators often see these types of punchy headlines in the …
The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund is seeding green projects in primarily low-income communities by sending $27 billion through a network of nonprofit lenders. …
The winner of a contest to sharpen the impact lens of students through deal sourcing and diligence was a team from London Business …
ImpactAlpha, January 26 – Ines Schiller got the idea for seaweed tampons while training in South Africa to be a marine environment guide. …
ImpactAlpha, Dec. 23 – Bold leaders. Taking action. Driving impact. That’s the tagline we’ve used for the dozens of Agents of Impact we profiled …
This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. It is republished …
Sustainable development? “More of the same.” Forest carbon credits? “Outside-imposed extraction.” Impact investing? “Are we really going far enough? Or are we just …
ImpactAlpha, September 8 — In 15 years in impact investing, Christopher Bentley noticed “a lot of for-profit companies focused on the criminal justice …
ImpactAlpha, August 18 – Monica Brand Engel’s advice to impact investors is this: Imperfect execution is ok. “Authentic impact is about accepting imperfection …
ImpactAlpha, Aug. 11 – Samuel Yeboah isn’t discouraged by the economic storm battering his home country of Ghana and many other emerging economies. “As …
Many investors look at promising new climate solutions and say, ‘Great, come back to me when you have traction.’ Azolla Ventures is more …
ImpactAlpha, June 30 – The first thing that Katherine Stodulka does when you meet her is suggest you meet someone else. Then she’ll …
ImpactAlpha, May 26 – A decade ago, investors pushed back against the loan products Jessica Espinoza was designing for female business owners as …
ImpactAlpha, July 23 – On this week’s podcast, Brian Walsh hosts roundtable regulars Imogen Rose-Smith and David Bank to discuss Imogen’s latest column, How private equity learned to stop worrying and love ESG. And we meet Cooper Connelly, a character on the Netflix series Sex/Life: “nice guy,” loyal husband – and impact investor. Plus, the headlines.
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