November-December 2021 | Field News & Resources
This page features this month's highlights, announcements, resources, and general news related to advancements in the impact investing field.
- In this report, the Knight Foundation, along with Professor Josh Lerner of Harvard Business School and Bella Private Markets, build on two past studies of diversity in the U.S. asset management industry, focusing on four major asset classes: mutual funds, hedge funds, private equity, and real estate. The report finds that across those asset classes, minority- and women-owned firms are underrepresented relative to other firms.
- The Equitable Facilities Fund, a social impact fund supported by the Walton Family Foundation’s Building Equity Initiative, has announced that it will provide $500 million in low-cost loans over the next five years to high-performing public charter schools run by people of color.
- Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) investors are asking new questions about impact measurement and management in their discussions with CDFIs, and CDFIs can expect that there will be more questions about how they measure, manage, and report on impact, writes Paige Chapel, President and CEO of Aeris in her recent blog.
- LOCUS Impact Investing provides a three-year update on the Community Investment Guarantee Pool (CIGP), a financing tool formed in December 2019 by a dozen impact investing organizations to create a pooled commitment of financial guarantees for intermediaries involved in affordable housing, small business, and climate lending.
- This report by The Giving Practice and Philanthropy Northwest shares key processes and decision points that investment committees encounter as they center racial, social, and gender equity. The report bridges the why and how of the work, touching on topics like discussions around power, embedding diversity, equity, and inclusion principles into committees’ cultures, and exploring what a diverse investment committee means amongst other topics. The report is based on extensive interviews with foundation trustees, CIOs, investing staff, outside investing advisors and industry advocates centering equity in investment committees.
- In an interview with Alabama Power Foundation's Hallie Bradley, Forbes details how the Foundation has broadened its impact by utilizing impact investing — specifically twelve impact investments to date — to grow the local economy in Alabama and support the local community.
- The Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta announced $2.26 million in combined grants support for community development, education and nonprofit technical assistance, and the arts in Atlanta.
- Learn how PayPal has shifted the way it thinks about its treasury assets and how it uses treasury impact investing in an educational fireside chat between Rosita Najmi, Senior Director, Head of Social Innovation, PayPal and Amit Bouri, CEO and co-founder of The GIIN, as moderated by Adva Saldinger, Senior Reporter, Devex. This discussion explores Paypal's commitment and deployment of more than $500 million to build Black-owned buisnesses as well as the global potential to activate an abundance of corporate cash sitting on balance sheets for good, for their ESG outcomes.
- Navajo Power, a majority Native-owned Public Benefit Corporation that develops utility-scale clean energy projects on Tribal lands, secured a $3 million program-related investment (PRI) from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation which will be used to further Navajo Power’s mission to develop more than $3 billion of clean energy infrastructure in Tribal communities by 2030.
- Barron's Penta showcases philanthophy's unique ability to advance solutions to the climate crisis by making catalytic contributions to emerging researchers and engineers with promising ideas that can absorb risks for emergent businesses, while giving confidence to investors. This article highlights MIE member Prime Coalition's Prime Impact Fund and its use of catalytic capital to fund climate technologies with the potential to cut greenhouse gas emissions at the gigaton level.