Money and Meaning

For the third year, SOCAP Global is pleased to present the State of the Field and Practice of Impact Investing. Join Fran Seegull, President of the U.S. Impact Investing Alliance; Monique Aiken, Managing Director or TIIP & Co-founder of Make Justice Normal; and Cathy Clark, Faculty Director at CASE at Duke to hear about the current state, emerging trends, threats and opportunities as impact investing moves more mainstream. This podcast is presented in advance of SOCAP22, held Oct. 17-20 at YBCA in San Francisco.

For 75 years UNICEF has been supporting the well-being of children around the globe, helping to save more children's lives than any other humanitarian organization. In 2011, UNICEF USA launched an impact investment fund, the Impact Fund for Children (IF4C). Since the fund's launch, IF4C has deployed close to half a billion dollars. On this episode, Alex Kravitz is joined by the President of the Impact Fund for Children, Cristina Shapiro. They discuss the innovative fund design that utilizes both grant and investment capital, the multiplying effect of investing in children, and new ways the IF4C is thinking about the use of investment capital to confront challenges facing children around the globe.

On this episode, host Alex Kravitz is joined by Jasper van Brakel, the President and CEO of RSF Social Finance. Since the 1980s, RSF has been driving capital to social enterprises supporting a more just and regenerative world. As an intermediary, RSF has long supported direct relationships between transactional partners, which led to the launch of their innovative Community Pricing Gatherings in 2009. These meetings bring together investors in their flagship Social Investment Fund, borrowers from the fund, and RSF staff to set interest rates each quarter. Instead of relying on invisible market forces to dictate interest rates, these meetings create direct relationships between investor and borrower and have proven to be a risk mitigant for investors. During the conversation, Alex and Jasper discuss the Community Pricing Gatherings, other forms of stakeholder governance, RSF's new Racial Justice Collaborative, and much more.

“It's not just about what you invest in, it's about how you invest.” In their new book ‘Letting Go', Ben Wrobel and Meg Massey make the case that in order to effectively tackle social challenges, philanthropists and impact investors need to cede control of funding decisions to people with lived experiences of the challenges they are trying to solve. During this episode, Meg and Ben join host, Alex Kravitz, to discuss the origin of the participatory funding movement, examples of innovative organizations working to center community voice, and some of the differences between building participation into philanthropic grantmaking vs. impact investing.

On this episode of Money and Meaning, host Alex Kravitz is joined by Shalini Rao, Director of Growth Equity at Generation Investment Management. Originally founded in 2004 by Al Gore and David Blood, Generation currently manages over $30B in assets with 100% invested in long-term, sustainable investments. The growth equity team recently closed their third Sustainable Solutions Fund with over $1B in committed capital, which they invest in three broad impact areas: planetary health, people health, and financial inclusion. During the conversation, Shalini talks about the importance of fully integrating sustainability into the investment process. She also discusses Generation’s use of investment roadmaps to identify systems positive outcomes (outcomes necessary to drive change in our economic and social systems) and how they work back from these desired outcomes to identify viable investment opportunities.

“You’ll get no argument from me that there are sectors where moving institutional scale, finance-first money is what’s needed. Our argument is that in places where the market is not functioning, in places where markets have left people behind, that this kind of low-cost money is required in order to make a difference in the lives of poor, marginalized, vulnerable communities and we shouldn’t delude ourselves into believing that finance-first [impact investing] is a magic bullet.” On this episode of Money + Meaning, Alex Kravitz is joined by Greg Neichin, Director and Board Member of Ceniarth, the impact-first single family office of Diane Isenberg. Ceniarth’s investment strategy focuses on geographies and markets where commercial, finance-first investment is not realistic. Investments in these areas, primarily marginalized, rural communities, necessitates a meaningful tradeoff between impact and return. During the conversation, Greg talks about the evolution of Ceniarth's impact-first approach and the important role that family offices and foundations can play in the sector.

“Lending has the capacity to transform what people can do based on their capabilities and not necessarily based just on the opportunities that they’ve been dealt. If you believe, like I do, that capabilities are equally distributed but opportunities certainly are not, then lending can be a way to try to level the playing field a bit more.” This episode of Money and Meaning features Jacob Haar, the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Community Investment Management (CIM). CIM is an institutional impact investment manager that provides debt capital to lenders who are doing innovative work in underserved communities. The CIM capital both helps these organizations scale up their lending practices to serve more customers and helps to bring responsible and transparent solutions for the underserved into the financial mainstream.

In late 2020, TELUS, one of Canada’s largest telecommunication companies, launched a $100mm corporate impact fund. Named the Pollinator Fund for Good, the fund invests seed and Series A capital in social entrepreneurs working across four impact areas: environment, agriculture, health, and inclusive communities. Joining this episode is Blair Miller, the Managing Partner of the fund to talk about how the TELUS culture of social capitalism led to the fund’s creation and what other corporates interested in impact investing can learn from their experience.

Ever since being denied a Small Business Association loan for being a Black woman, Melissa Bradley has dedicated her career to building support ecosystems for historically marginalized entrepreneurs. From her time working in the Treasury Department of the Clinton White House to the recent launch of both Ureeka and the 1863 Fund, Melissa has helped support entrepreneurship and wealth creation from leadership roles across the public, private, and social sectors.  Melissa is the Managing Partner of 1863 Ventures, a nonprofit accelerator of New Majority entrepreneurs - their term for the aggregation of diverse ethnic groups that will represent a majority of the US population by 2044. Here she recently launched the 1863 Fund, which aims to both reduce the cost of capital for New Majority founders and to better align that capital through the use of revenue-based financing. She is also the co-founder of Ureeka, an online platform for entrepreneurs to access the people, programs, and connections they need to grow. She is an Adjunct Professor of impact investing and social entrepreneurship at Georgetown University and served as a political appointee under both Presidents Obama and Clinton, most recently serving as the Director of the Social Innovation Fund for President Obama.

Jewel Burks Solomon is the Managing Partner of Collab Capital and the Head of Google for Startups in the US. Having founded and sold her first company, Partpic, to Amazon in her mid-20s, Jewel has made a career out of investing in and helping to mentor traditionally underrepresented founders. Having experienced some challenging investor conversations while growing Partpic, Jewel set out to design an investment fund that better aligned the incentives of investor and entrepreneur. The result is Collab Capital, where she and her two partners are about to close their first $50mm fund. On this episode, Jewel joins our host, Alex Kravitz, to talk about the innovative structure of Collab Capital and the ways that her entrepreneurial journey shaped the direction of the fund. 

On this week’s episode, Alex is joined by Dr. Angela Jackson, the Managing Partner of New Profit’s Future of Work initiatives. New Profit is a venture philanthropy that has provided over $325mm in support to social entrepreneurs since its founding in 1998. Their Future of Work initiatives seek to equip workers with the skills necessary to find livable wage jobs. This work took on a new urgency in 2020 with the pandemic causing unprecedented disruption in the labor market, particularly for the most vulnerable workers. During the conversation, Dr. Jackson talks about the benefits of the venture philanthropy model for scaling social enterprises, the importance of investing in “proximate leaders”, or those closest to the challenges they are trying to solve, and ways that everyone can help build a more equitable future of work.

As demand for impact investments grow, more and more organizations are creating investment products labeled as ‘impact’. However, without any regulatory body or industry-wide standards, there are significant concerns about impact washing, the practice of branding products as ‘impact’ more for marketing reasons than any social or environmental substance. Tideline, an impact investing consulting company, responded to this need by launching their independent verification business in 2019, which they recently spun out into BlueMark. Joining us on the podcast this week is Christina Leijonhufvud, co-founder of Tideline and CEO of BlueMark. Christina discusses the evolution of impact measurement and management practices, the need to measure for both positive and negative impacts, and the increasing importance of independent verification as more and more products are introduced and labeled as impact.

On this week’s episode, Alex is joined by George Ashton III, Managing Director of Strategic Investments at Local Initiatives Support Corporation or LISC. George recently helped launch LISC's Black Economic Development Fund. Targeting up to $250mm and initially seeded by $25mm investments from both Netflix and Costco, the Black Economic Development Fund will work to close the racial wealth gap through both a direct and indirect investment strategy: directly through investments in black-led businesses and anchor institutions, and indirectly through working with black-led financial institutions. Our conversation covers the growth of CDFIs, their role in community development, the economic incentive for corporations to help close the racial wealth gap, and how more corporations can unlock their balance sheets for impact.

On this episode, host Alex Kravitz is joined by Margret Trilli, the CEO & Chief Investment Officer of ImpactAssets, a nonprofit impact investing firm with over $1.2B in assets under management. They discuss ImpactAssets’ flagship donor-advised fund and the surge in both charitable giving and impact investments they have seen in 2020. They also discuss the partnership between ImpactAssets and the nonprofit Stop the Spread, which has led to hundreds of millions of dollars in grants and impact investments being deployed into COVID response funds over the past six months.

Last year, MIT Solve launched Solve Innovation Future, a first-of-its-kind donor-advised venture fund. The philanthropic venture fund is structured as an evergreen vehicle where proceeds are paid forward into future social entrepreneurs. The evergreen nature allows the fund to provide appropriate forms of capital tailored to each entrepreneur's unique situation. Leading Solve Innovation Future is Casey van der Stricht. In this episode, Casey sits down with Alex to talk about how they landed on the unique fund structure, the innovative types of funding they are providing to entrepreneurs, and her advice for entrepreneurs looking to raise capital.

“It needed to be easier, faster, more dynamic, and more value-add to everybody involved to understand impact. It just doesn't make any sense; people are committing decades of their lives to trying to make a change in the world and the act of figuring out whether or not that’s happening is an exceptional activity.” In this episode, Alex Kravitz is joined by Sasha Dichter, the Co-Founder of 60 Decibels - an end to end impact measurement company. Previously Sasha served as the Chief Innovation Officer for Acumen, where he led the organization's impact measurement practice and launched the Lean Data initiative that eventually spun out to become 60 Decibels. The conversation covers the state of impact measurement and management, how their data is used to amplify impact, and the recent launch of their COVID-19 dashboard, an effort to track the effect of the pandemic on low income people around the world.

“Finance at some fundamental level is about making bets on the future. Nobody makes money in the present - we only make money because we were right about the future that we bet on. So one really important way to think about investing with a gender lens is to question your assumptions about the future." - Joy Anderson On this episode we are joined by Joy Anderson, Founder and President of the Criterion Institute, a leading think tank focused on shaping markets to create social and environmental good. Joy has been at the forefront of the rapidly evolving field of impact investing over the past nearly two decades and is one of the pioneers of the gender lens investing movement. Our conversation touches upon the growth and evolution of gender lens investing, the biggest challenges facing the field, and how knowledge of history helps drive systems-level change. Please note that the subject of gender-based violence is discussed during this episode.

“It is a privilege to have any investable assets for savings or retirement but if you do, in any amount, you have power. You have the power to invest in companies, in funds, in a financial system and an economy that supports your values. You don’t need to have 6 or 7 figures. Anybody can do it and can do it today.” - Beth Bafford, VP of Syndications and Strategy at Calvert Impact Capital In this episode, we dive into the details of one of the most common questions we get: how do you start impact investing? What does it actually look like in practice for someone who doesn’t have a family office or run a foundation? Joining us to walk us through her process of moving her personal portfolio to impact is Beth Bafford of Calvert Impact Capital. We talk about the first steps she took to shift her portfolio, the differing processes across asset types, areas where she still wishes there were better impact offerings, and her most impactful investments to date.

For our 50th episode, we take it back to the basics. What is impact investing? What does it look like across asset classes and impact areas? Is impact investing inherently concessionary? And, mostly importantly, is it working? Joining us for this conversation is impact investing thought-leader Rehana Nathoo, Founder and CEO of Spectrum Impact, a strategy consulting firm that supports a range of organizations looking to expand their impact investing footprint. Prior to founding Spectrum Impact, Rehana led the Impact Investing program at the Case Foundation, helped design the Bank of New York Mellon’s Social Finance program and pilot impact investment fund, helped lead the Rockefeller Foundation’s impact investing grantmaking program, and supported partnerships at the UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF). She is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor within Georgetown University’s Global Human Development Program, teaching on impact investing and social finance in emerging markets. 

This week’s guest is Antony Bugg-Levine, impact investing pioneer and CEO of the Nonprofit Finance Fund (NFF). Founded in 1980, NFF is a community development finance institution that provides financing and consulting to nonprofits across the country. In his role at NFF, Antony recently helped launch a $75mm Covid-19 response fund to support NYC nonprofit organizations most affected by the pandemic with both grants and interest free loans. Prior to his work at NFF, Antony was a Managing Director at the Rockefeller Foundation, where he led the foundation’s impact investing initiative. He is also the founding board chair of the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) and author of the book “Impact Investing: Transforming How We Make Money While Making a Difference” with Jed Emerson. The conversation with Antony spans the history and evolution of the field of impact investing, from a revolving loan fund created in Benjamin Franklin’s will to the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 through the meeting where the phrase “impact investing” was coined in 2007. Antony also discusses the direct line between the civil rights movement and the modern field of impact investing. Lastly, he discusses his work with the Nonprofit Finance Fund and where he is finding hope during the current pandemic.

“Our board and our team believe that you can define any societal problem as either a climate change problem or an inequality problem…so our thesis has evolved over the years to bring our resources to bear against those two large challenges.” The Autodesk Foundation is a private foundation that focuses on how design and engineering solutions can solve some of the world’s most pressing challenges. In this episode, Alex sits down with Joe Speicher, the Executive Director of the foundation, to discuss the evolution of the foundation, how and why they landed on those specific impact areas, the reasons the foundation began impact investing, and why Joe believes that philanthropy is a net negative for society.

MORTAR is a Cincinnati-based accelerator working to help historically marginalized entrepreneurs get the resources they need to start and run successful businesses. Whereas most accelerators pull from as large a pool of entrepreneurs as possible, MORTAR has taken the opposite approach, starting with one specific neighborhood in Cincinnati, Over-the-Rhine, and designing a curriculum to be both relevant and culturally competent for that community. In this episode, Alex sat down with Allen Woods, the Co-founder and Executive Director of MORTAR, to discuss the growth and evolution of the organization, the advantages of localization when it comes to entrepreneurial support, and Allen’s own entrepreneurial journey.

Entrepreneurship is a leading driver of economic growth, job creation, and wealth building yet 83% of entrepreneurs do not have access to either bank lending or venture capital. To reduce this barrier to starting or growing a business, the Kauffman Foundation recently launched the Capital Access Lab. In this episode, Alex sits down with Philip Gaskin, Vice President of Entrepreneurship at the Kauffman Foundation and Agnes Dasewicz, Entrepreneur in Residence and Capital Access Lab Lead. They discuss the challenge entrepreneurs face raising capital, the Foundation’s effort to create systems-level change in entrepreneurial funding, and why this work is deeply personal for them both.

“About a month ago, we asked ourselves at CASE, ‘what can we do really quickly to help entrepreneurs through this crisis?’ We had already seen some very significant businesses in our local area shut down in the first week and that scared me.” -Cathy Clark, Faculty Director of CASE at Duke Realizing there was a need for a centralized database of emergency funding sources for entrepreneurs struggling during the current pandemic, Cathy Clark built and launched covidcap.com, a searchable website for entrepreneurs around the world, whether for-profit or non-profit, to find funding sources in their community. In this episode, Cathy sits down with Alex to discuss the conception and creation of the site, the response times she is seeing for entrepreneurs in need of funding, and the role that impact investors can play during this crisis.

“I encourage all of us who are the dreamers to continuously put forth new visions for what is possible - particularly in this moment - because, if we can’t do it right now, when can we do it?” - Rodney Foxworth, CEO of Common Future Common Future, formerly BALLE, is an organization dedicated to shifting capital into local communities, uplifting local leaders, and accelerating the development of local economies. In this episode, Lindsay sits down with Rodney to discuss his work, why it is more urgent now than ever, and the opportunity our new reality creates for rebuilding antiquated and exclusionary systems.

In his plenary address at SOCAP17 Jed Emerson said, “We need to understand the purpose of capital is not simply the absence of evil from our pursuit of wealth, something hard enough and potentially impossible for us to achieve, but the active pursuit of healing, wholeness, and love in this world.” In this episode, Lindsay sits down with Emerson, a personal mentor and longtime pillar of the SOCAP community, to discuss the field of impact investing from its origins to the present day. 

"The global water challenge is really about balancing the micro and the macro. People, industry, agriculture–everybody needs water in the right place, in the right quantity, at the right quality, and at the right time. Doing that is unbelievably hard.” –Tom Ferguson Imagine H2O is an organization with a mission to empower people to develop and deploy innovations to solve water challenges globally. On this episode, Alex sits down with Tom Ferguson, VP of Programming at Imagine H2O, to discuss the scope and urgency of today’s water challenges, some of the most promising solutions, including technological innovations he is seeing on the horizon, and what investors can do to help scale solutions that work.

How can technology help extend access to financial services to the 1.7 billion unbanked people in the world? In the latest episode of Money and Meaning, Lindsay Smalling interviews Kiva’s Chief Strategy Officer, Matthew Davie, about some of their new solutions to the challenges of financial exclusion. Davie talks about Kiva Protocol and other new ways they are working to change the underlying system in order to expand access to capital in emerging markets.

Blended finance deals have the potential to drive trillions of dollars of institutional capital into high impact projects in emerging markets and could lead to massive progress towards achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. In this episode, Joan Larrea, CEO of Convergence, explains how blended finance can accelerate solutions to poverty, hunger, and the other SDGs. She also talks about the future of the blended finance industry and why we need to really hustle to get on a billions to trillions trajectory if we are to achieve the SDGs on time.

TechSoup was the first nonprofit in the US to launch a national direct public offering (DPO). In the year since the launch of this growth capital campaign, they have raised over $8 million, with individual investments ranging from $50 to $1 million. In this episode, Alex Kravitz has a conversation with Rebecca Masisak and Ken Tsunoda about their unique approach to fundraising, lessons they have learned from the experience, and how the DPO has helped TechSoup grow and strengthen their community. Featured Voices: Rebecca Masisak, CEO, TechSoup Ken Tsunoda, VP of Development, TechSoup

Laura Callanan and her organization Upstart Co-Lab are working to convince investors that they have a tremendous opportunity to drive impact through investments in the arts, culture, and heritage-based businesses that make up the creative economy. Souls Grown Deep is a Foundation and Community Partnership dedicated to documenting, preserving, and promoting the cultural traditions and work of African American artists from the South. Under the leadership of Maxwell Anderson, Souls Grown Deep has partnered with Upstart Co-Lab to invest $1M in opportunities that align with their mission. On this episode, Lindsay Smalling interviews Callanan and Anderson about their partnership and the opportunities that creative lens investing offers for investors, museums, creatives, and communities.

For the final episode of 2019, we bring you highlights from the SOCAP19 mainstage. The theme that ties each of this episode’s featured highlights together is that they all demonstrate the power of cross-sector collaboration. The clips highlight examples of ways that leaders from across the global marketplace have been working together in innovative ways to solve some of the greatest challenges of our time. Featured Voices: Neville Crawley of Kiva with Helen Avery of Euromoney Bonnie Glick of USAID with David Bohigian of OPIC Kat Taylor of Beneficial State Bank with Tim Freundlich of ImpactAssets Susan Taylor Batten of ABFE with Rip Rapson of the Kresge Foundation

The evolution of microfinance from radical idea to global industry was surprisingly fast, sometimes messy, and filled with successes and failures. Despite numerous challenges, microfinance grew into a global industry that has helped lift millions of people out of poverty. As impact investing continues to move into the mainstream, what can the industry learn from the early days of microfinance? This week’s episode, recorded live at SOCAP19, features a panel of leading microfinance experts and practitioners who share lessons they learned and offer insights into the current state, and potential future, of impact investing. Featured voices: Geoff Davis of Cicero Impact Capital Johanna Posada of Elevar Equity Arun Sharma of International Finance Corporation Monica Brand Engel of Quona Capital

Though no one can predict exactly how automation, robotics, and other emerging technologies will shape the future of work, we can be sure that workers will need to be able to quickly learn new skills in order to compete. In this episode, you’ll hear Jean Shia, Head of Portfolio and Investment at Autodesk Foundation, lead a SOCAP19 panel discussion among active investors in workforce tech. Each expert shares their unique approach to investing in the future of work, data and trends that are driving their strategies, and the solutions they are investing in to help ensure that workers are not left behind. Panelists: Jean Shia, Autodesk Foundation Amon Anderson, Acumen America Jason Palmer, New Markets Venture Partners Sonali Kothari, ETF@JFFLabs Elizabeth Garlow, Lumina Impact Ventures

In this episode, Javier Torres of the Surdna Foundation leads a conversation on what it will take to achieve racial equity with Black Lives Matter co-creator and Principal of the Black Futures Lab Alicia Garza and Rashad Robinson, President of Color of Change. They discuss how, in order to achieve real, lasting change, the conversation must move beyond income and wealth disparity and begin to address disparities in power. They also share personal stories of why they do the work they do, how they are contextualizing their work in the current political climate, and what they want listeners to think, feel, and do after listening to this conversation.

Fran Seegull is the Executive Director of the U.S. Impact Investing Alliance, an organization spun out of the G7 Social Impact Investment Taskforce to raise awareness and grow demand for impact investing across America. In this episode, Lindsay Smalling has a conversation with Seegull that offers insight into the history and growth of the field, including many of the most important watershed moments and policy landmarks, and offers her perspective on the mainstreaming of impact investing. She also discusses both critiques of the field and the recent Business Roundtable announcement expanding the purpose of a corporation to be about serving all stakeholders, not just shareholders.

Invisibility and harmful stereotypes are two of the biggest challenges facing Indigenous people today. According to research conducted by The Reclaiming Native Truth Project, nearly 80% of Americans know little to nothing about contemporary Native peoples, which leads to systemic bias, racism, and neglect of Indigenous communities. In this episode, Lindsay Smalling talks with Crystal Echo Hawk and Nick Tilsen, two Indigenous leaders who head organizations working to change the narrative and the status quo in order to help Indigenous communities thrive. They discuss their efforts to bring about widespread narrative change, concrete examples of why it is such an exciting time to make big investments and big impact in Indian Country, and where their movements are headed in the future.  Echo Hawk, a member of the Pawnee Nation, is Founder and CEO of IllumiNative. Tilsen, a member of the Oglala Lakota Nation, is Founder, President, and CEO of NDN Collective.

At the intersection of democracy, impact investing, and progressive media, you will find New Media Ventures (NMV). This organization is a nonprofit seed fund and angel network working to create positive change across America by investing in entrepreneurs and activists “wrestling with the biggest challenges facing our democracy.” By investing solely to maximize impact, whether into nonprofits or for-profits, NMV is working to address fundamental challenges to democracy and to correct systemic power imbalances. In this episode, Lindsay Smalling sits down with Julie Menter, Managing Director of New Media Ventures.

For any community development initiative to achieve the desired positive outcomes, impact investors must design with communities instead of for them. Opportunity Zones, even with the recent criticism, are still seen as a way to drive investments that will build wealth and create social impact in marginalized communities. How can the great community development work that is being done at the local level be connected with big top-down policies like Opportunity Zones? This episode, recorded live in Baltimore, features a cross-sector panel of community leaders, investors, and OZ experts exploring inclusive community development. Featured voices include Pickett Slater Harrington of Joltage, Candace Chance of the Baltimore City Intergenerational Initiatives for Trauma and Youth (B-CIITY), John Brothers of the Baltimore Children and Youth Fund, Ben Siegel of the City of Baltimore, and Elise Liberto of Brown Advisory.

Despite bring the fastest-growing population of American entrepreneurs, founders of color are systematically under-recognized and under-resourced in America today. How can we begin to build new systems that will support entrepreneurs of color? What will it take to build an inclusive impact economy? This past June, SOCAP convened the first-ever SPECTRUM event in Atlanta to discuss these challenges and begin building an action plan to solve them. In this episode, we offer a selection of inspirational and insightful moments recorded live at SPECTRUM.  Featured voices include Marc Bamuthi Joseph of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Jessica Stago of Change Labs, Frederick Hutson of Pigeonly, Jay Bailey of the Russell Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and Nadia Brigham of Brigham Consulting.

Foundations traditionally have grant-making staff and endowment investing staff that operate entirely independent of each other. How can we move past this traditional “two-pocket thinking” to utilize the full spectrum of capital - not just grants and market-rate investments - to better align a foundation’s entire portfolio with their desired impact outcomes? In this episode, Dr. Stephanie Gripne of the Impact Finance Center and Teresa Ish of the Walton Family Foundation discuss the work they are doing in this space and why creating sustainable fisheries requires innovative financing structures.

The new Opportunity Zone legislation is expected to drive billions of dollars of investment into low-income communities around the country. Yet, with limited oversight, this capital has as much potential to harm communities as is does to benefit them. In an effort to set a precedent for transparency in this new space, the Kresge Foundation has recently committed $22 million to two Opportunity Funds in exchange for higher levels of reporting and accountability. In this episode, Rip Rapson, President, and CEO of the Kresge Foundation, and Kresge Social Investment Officer Aaron Seybert discuss the innovative way the foundation is working to shape OZ investment.

Cooperatives hold incredible promise to build wealth in marginalized communities and reduce the racial wealth gap but myths and misconceptions about alternative ownership models are common. Many lenders and investors are skeptical of cooperatively-owned businesses or find them too “risky” to qualify for investment. This episode, recorded live at a SOCAP 365 event in Baltimore, is a panel discussion about the promise of the cooperative model to create social and economic change, including frank observations about the challenges that often prevent these businesses from securing investment or achieving success at scale.

How can innovative financial technologies help marginalized and underserved communities manage their personal finances and build wealth over time? In this episode of Money and Meaning, host Alex Kravitz talks to Marcia Chong Rosado of Village Capital, an accelerator for social enterprises, and Ramona Ortega, Founder of My Money My Future, a platform providing personal financial guidance for millennials of color who have been overlooked by traditional financial institutions.

On prior episodes of Money + Meaning, we have explored ways innovative ideas generated by unlikely allies can create change across institutions and communities. But what about the systemic level? Could conversations between people of different perspectives and backgrounds lead to more equitable economies or systems of government? In this episode, host Lindsay Smalling has a conversation that addresses these questions with unlikely allies who are working on civic engagement and democratic initiatives from two very different institutions: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Mitch Kapor is fond of saying, “genius is evenly distributed by ZIP Code, but opportunity is not.” So, in 2011 Mitch and his wife, Freada Kapor Klein, set out to tackle this issue by investing in seed stage tech startups closing gaps of access, opportunity, or outcome for low-income communities and communities of color in the US. After more than 100 investments over eight years, Kapor Capital has not only been able to generate gap-closing social impact but has done so while achieving financial returns in the top quartile among VC funds of similar size. In this episode, Mitch shares lessons learned from his journey into impact investing and tries to dispel harmful biases still embedded in the VC community.

MPOWERD is an innovative solar light manufacturer recently named one as one of the Real Leaders 100 most impactful companies in the world. Their mission is to sustainably provide clean, safe, and affordable solar lighting to everyone, including the people in developing countries who need it most, and their innovative design has made their products a favorite of humanitarian aid organizations around the world. In this episode of Money + Meaning, host Alex Kravitz interviews Seungah Jeong and John Salzinger about their own journeys to impact and the inspiring ways MPOWERD products are helping people around the globe. They also share their insights into the challenges and joys of running a social enterprise, give examples of how they are measuring and reporting their impact, and offer some valuable advice for emerging social entrepreneurs.

This week's episode is a conversation with impact investing pioneer Dave Kirkpatrick of SJF Ventures and Impact Capital Managers. Dave was at the forefront of the impact investing industry when he co-founded SJF Ventures back in 1999. Originally the Sustainable Jobs Fund, SJF has grown from a $17 million first fund to the recent $125 million close of fund four. In this conversation, host Alex Kravitz asks Dave about his longevity in the industry, how his investment philosophy has evolved over the lifecycle of his four funds, and how the industry has changed over his 20 years as an investor.

Two-thirds of the workforce in the United States lacks a college degree. With many companies and job platforms screening cadidates based on education, a significant number of smart, hard-working people are locked out of the job market. Seeing firsthand the impact this has on workers and their families, Yscaira Jimenez founded LaborX, a talent marketplace that connects skilled workers with employers and training programs. TechSF is a government agency that was started to provide access to technology and tech training for San Franciscans and to develop a local pipeline that could meet the demand for tech talent in the area. Through TechSF’s partnership with LaborX, San Francisco employers can use the platform to gain access to a diverse pipeline of vetted workers.  In this episode of Money + Meaning, Lindsay Smalling interviews Jimenez and Orrian Willis of TechSF about the insights they can offer into this challenge and the details of their innovative partnership, as well as the impacts they are seeing the program create for workers, employers, and communities. 

On this week’s episode of Money + Meaning, recorded live at the SOCAP 365 PNW event in Seattle, you’ll hear Sayer Jones, Director of Mission Related Investing for Meyer Memorial Trust, Lisa Yancey, Co-Founder of The We's Match, and Stephen Green, Founder of PitchBlack, in a candid and realistic conversation about what it will take to close the racial wealth gap. Each panelist shares their own experiences working to increase financing and support for entrepreneurs of color, as well as stories of the barriers they have encountered along the way.

What happens when the people who live and work in a community are able to pool capital then collectively decide how to use those funds for the betterment of everyone in their community? The Boston Ujima Project is answering that question by blending grassroots organizing with finance to build an equitable, community-based local economy. In this episode, Lindsay Smalling sits down with Aaron Tanaka and Lucas Turner-Owens of The Boston Ujima Project about how their project evolved, how they are using the power of cross-sector collaboration to solve challenges and build wealth at the local level, and the impact they are seeing in the communities they serve.