November-December 2020 | Field News & Resources
This page features this month's highlights, announcements, resources, and general news related to advancements in the impact investing field.
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This blog offers must read resources on place-based impact investing, including the MIE and Urban Institute practitioner briefs published last year.
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The Impact Finance Research Consortium (IFRC) launched the Impact Finance Database, a comprehensive collection of data on impact investing funds around the world. The database from the IFRC, a joint effort by three leading business schools, includes the funds’ financial performance, due diligence practices, investor relations, legal governance, and strategy, as highlighted in this MIE brief.
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The Skoll Foundation committed to invest $10 million in Water.org’s WaterEquity fund, which provides clean water and sanitation infrastructure around the globe, according to Philanthropy News Digest.
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A new $3.2 million loan fund from the Community First Foundation, Rose Community Foundation, and Denver Foundation aims to help local nonprofits in the Denver area manage the long-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and counter historic racial and gender disparities in access to capital, Philanthropy News Digest reports.
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Knight Foundation, Surdna Foundation and Comcast NBCUniversal pledged to invest $2.1 million to support the Center for Black Innovation’s work to increase Black entrepreneurship in Miami and throughout the country.
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The Sunderland Foundation invested $1 million in the Equity2 Impact Fund, the only opportunity zone fund 100 percent focused on Kansas City. The funds will support mission-driven businesses and community-focused real estate projects, according to the Kansas City Business Journal.
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Living Cities' Blended Catalyst Fund announced a capital investment in Aux21 Capital Partners, a BIPOC-owned early stage venture capital firm that supports entrepreneurship for diverse founders and immigrant communities.
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In the new reality of the COVID-19 pandemic, Darren Walker is finding innovative ways to maximize Ford Foundation’s $13.7 billion endowment, such as issuing bonds to raise money for grantees in distress, and he’s convincing other legacy philanthropies to join his efforts, The Wall Street Journal reports.
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New York State’s $226 billion pension fund committed to divest from fossil fuels. The fund, one of the world’s largest institutional investors, will drop many of its fossil fuel stocks in the next five years and sell its shares in other companies that contribute to global warming by 2040, The New York Times reports.
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Maycomb Capital's Community Outcomes Fund recently closed its second round of financing to support pre-K education in Memphis and Shelby County, Tennessee. The fund supports a coalition of community partners that work with the Shelby County school district to develop quality, evidence-based pre-K programs using a pay-for-success model.
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Kresge Foundation and John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation are studying the diversity of the U.S. asset management firms that invest a combined $10.8 billion on their behalf. The two foundations have partnered with technology firm Lenox Park Solutions to survey and assess the firms’ racial and gender diversity makeup.
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COVID-19 has exacerbated the U.S.’s racial inequalities and brought to light how philanthropic and impact investing dollars don’t always reach those who need them most. Native American communities, for example, remain largely overlooked by impact investors and philanthropists alike, via Glenmede’s Impactivate.
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An evaluation of the “English for Advancement” (EfA) component of the Massachusetts Pathways to Economic Advancement Project – a pay-for-success program led by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, JVS, and Social Finance that aims to increase immigrant’s opportunities and incomes – found that EfA had a substantial impact on earnings for participants in the second year after project enrollment, averaging $3,505 over the first two years.
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This Clinton Foundation webinar addresses racial disparities in homeownership in the United States and highlights efforts to increase the availability of affordable housing and revitalize urban areas across the country.
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Foundations should demonstrate trust in community leadership and challenge philanthropy’s traditional top-down approach, by handing over funds and power to local communities themselves, this op-ed from Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation declares, via Stanford Social Innovation Review.
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This Cornerstone Capital webinar delves into sustainable forestry investment, touching on forestry investing’s role in limiting global warming, potential risks from timber harvesting and how to mitigate them, and how forestry investments can foster rural and tribal economic development in the Pacific Northwest.
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Upstart Co-Lab and Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors have released a primer on impact investing specifically for leaders of museums and other cultural institutions that makes the case for cultural institutions to begin impact investing. The report includes lessons from first-mover cultural institutions, along with examples of relevant impact investing opportunities in the creative economy.
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Anchorum St. Vincent, Enterprise Bank & Trust, and Homewise have partnered to create the Community Catalyst Fund (CCF), with an initial investment of $10 million and a long-term vision to improve community vitality in northern and central New Mexico. The Community Catalyst Fund aims to increase affordable housing options and mixed-use developments in underserved neighborhoods