March 2023 | Field News & Resources
This page features this month's highlights, announcements, resources, and general news related to advancements in the impact investing field.
- Hear Roy Swan, Ford Foundation’s head of mission investments talk about his aspirations while growing up, his search for a career path where he could help people, and the personal and professional influences along the way that led him to embrace impact investing. Swan unpacks and explains Ford’s approach to manage $1.4 billion in mission investments dedicated to social justice.
- Jim Sorenson, founder of the Sorenson Impact Foundation explains managing a corpus that is 100 percent aligned with its values, citing investments in enterprises that support people with disabilities, affordable housing, and other real estate investments that respond to community needs.
- Arabella Advisors’ Cyrus Kharas makes the case that foundations have a unique and powerfully influential position during uncertain economic times, and that their endowments that enable impact investments are more critical than ever to shore up businesses, especially those that fill community needs.
- Impact Frontiers and Impact Capital Managers (ICM) announced the launch of a new online curriculum designed to improve investor decision-making through the integration of impact and financial considerations.
- The Dohmen Company Foundation (DCF) announced the launch of the Dohmen Impact Investment Fund during a live-streamed event at the White House. The Fund will invest $60 million to accelerate the growth and impact of for-profit social enterprises advancing proven food solutions that improve human health.
- The Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) has launched a new tool for agriculture impact investment funds to measure the impact of their investments against others.
- GIIN developed its impact performance benchmarks, a tool now available in IRIS+ for investors to analyze the impact performance of their investments within a sector and compare their performance to peers and to the change needed to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
- Beth Bafford of Calvert Impact and Bulbul Gupta of Pacific Community Ventures call for government investment in market infrastructure for community finance.
- ImpactAssets has released the ImpactAssets 50 2023 (IA 50), an annual database for impact investors, family offices, corporate and family foundations and institutional investors that features a diversified listing of private capital fund managers delivering social and environmental impact as well as financial returns.
- The Investor Blueprint — by PolicyLink in partnership with CapEQ and FSG — aims to catalyze investors on the imperative of integrating racial and economic equity holistically within their institutions, from the heart of their purpose to their decision-making processes, investment strategies, and measures of organizational effectiveness.
