May 2019 | Field News and Resources
Below you'll find this month's highlights, announcements, and general news related to advancements in the impact investing field.
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The "Dollars and Change" podcast by The Wharton School Business Radio interviewed MIE's CEO Matt Onek to discuss how foundations can ready themselves for impact and more.
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Read about Packard Foundation’s $10MM investment helping to launch New Forests’ innovative “Impact Tranche.” The Impact Tranche is designed as a new equity class of shares within New Forests' Tropical Asia Forest Fund 2 (TAFF2) to incentivize the fund to pursue deeper climate, biodiversity and social outcomes that stretch beyond the fund’s business-as-usual sustainable forestry investment practices.
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Foundations' 21st-century obilgation features Laura Kind McKenna, a trustee of the Patricia Kind Family Foundation, and her depiction of the foundation's journey in mission-aligned investing. Thank you for highlighting the power of networks like MIE!
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Cleveland Foundation announces $150 million commitment to social impact by the end of 2022. As part of the overall impact investment goal of $150 million, the foundation also hopes to more than double the amount it invests in MRIs and recoverable grants by 2022.
- In this article Sharon Alpert, President of the Nathan Cummings Foundation, outlines the foundation's strategy to aligning 100 percent of its endowment to mission and calls on other foundations to engage in mission-aligned investing.
- The Rockefeller Foundation has launched a $5.5 million Opportunity Zone community capacity building initiative which will provide six cities financial and human resources for two years, with the goal of helping them attract responsible private investment. Newark is the first city selected to receive $920,000 in co-funding from Prudential Financial and Rockefeller Foundation under this initiative.
- The latest episode of the ImpactAlpha and Omidyar Network's "Beyond Trade-offs" podcast with Roy Swan and Christine Looney of Ford Foundation dives into the foundation's mission-related investing program and its commitment to deploy $1 billion in mission-related investments over 10 years.
- In an open letter to the philanthropic community, Robert Ross of The California Endowment, Luz Vega Marquis of the Marguerite Casey Foundation, and Stephen Heintz of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund emphasize the need to support research and data generation around the issue of diversity in foundation boards, and invite chief executives and board chairs to participate in this survey for the next edition of BoardSource's Leading With Intent report.
- In this article Jennifer Pryce, President and CEO of Calvert Impact Capital, makes the case for scaling the impact investing sector by developing more products and services that can tap into the vast resources available in capital markets.
- This article highlights the need for clear and meaningful guidelines around impact measurement in the Opportunity Zone program, noting the attempts of organizations such as The Rockefeller Foundation, Kresge Foundation, and others to address this gap. The authors question whether such attempts by the philanthropic community can have the needed effect of creating universal standards for oversight and measurement within Opportunity Zones.
- Catalyst, a private equity firm established with the help of Jim Sorenson of Sorenson Impact, is raising $150 million to invest in Opportunity Zones. The group’s first fund, which Sorenson is seeding with $10 million, will focus on developing real estate with an eye toward delivering both market-rate returns and measurable social good.
