Week 3: Money & Impact

Money & Impact - Understanding the financial system & pathways towards a sustainable economy

Incredible - we're already on our way into week 3 & we're excited to host you on Thursday in our community call on money & impact!

Please do show up for the community call. We have a great skill session planned this week. That will be the start of our sessions with asset managers directly responsible for ensuring impact happens with invested dollars. Lots of great learning ahead.

This week, we will take the chance to deepen some of the concepts our speakers have been throwing into the mix - starting with apparently simple questions like ‘What is money?’ or ‘What is impact?’ to understanding a little more about the nature of systemic change. Many of the resources we recommend this week have been shared already under the module overview - now is your chance if you haven't had a look at them yet. Here's the miro board we've been using to create our map together!

Recommended resources on the nature of money

📹 Banking 101 - How money is created by banks & debunking myths Positive Money UK (video playlist, 20 min- 1h)

📃David Graeber on how we understand money (Article, 5 min)

📃Money, Power, and Monetary Regimes by Pavlina R. Tcherneva, Levy Economics Institute of Bard College

📃What are the issues that make money so problematic? - Dark Matter Labs (Article, 10 min)

📚Brett Scott’s Short Course: Econ 101 -An introduction to economic life

🎬 Finding the Money (Documentay, 2h)

Recommended resources on systemic change

📃Leverage points. Places to intervene in a system - Donella Meadows (paper, 15 min)

📹 2 Loops Theory (video, 15 min)

📹 Leverage points & the iceberg model (video, 8 min)

📹 A cautionary tale: Cats in Borneo (video, 4 min)

📃Cynefin framework - wiki overview (website)

On Sept 18th at 3pm EST, you have the chance to join another skill session from 🕺Greg Piccirillo and Will Relle of HarbourVest Partners - a direct example from the field! Will and Greg will present how HarbourVest uses sustainable finance strategies in their work in private equity and impact. The interactive session will explore their ESG program, tools used by the industry, and initiatives they support. We will investigate two case studies to understand the role ESG plays in the analysis of investment decisions. Greg is a past alumnus of the Fellowship program, and Will has been a long-time supporter of our events.

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📹 Week 3 Recordings

Community Call 3: Money & Impact - Understanding the financial system & pathways towards a sustainable economy

📹 Watch here

Skill Session: Harbour Vest Partners w/Greg Piccirillo and Will Relle

📹 Watch here

📚PRI Guide for Private Equity : To get acquainted with the space, we recommend this reading from the Principles of Responsible Investing. The UN PRI have made this guide for Private Equity and how to manage ESG (environmental, social, and governance) issues with investments in stock, indexes, ETFs, etc (all private equity investments). Please read this short introduction to prepare for the session with Will and Greg.