Week 9: New Money in Practice
Creating impactful change & involving our local communities and organizations
We’re wrapping up our Fall Cohort’s Community Calls as we let YOU take over the program in November through peer projects, theme-based learning deep dives, and the skill sessions you choose the topics for. To prepare you for the self-organizing, we invite you into a space to explore stories of impact from the bottom up. How does impact investing look and feel like if it’s about our own money and making a difference in our own local communities? What role will you play in your impact journey? We’ll also take some time to look back at all you’ve done in these past two months, plus what you’ll do over the next two months.
🙋♂️ Felipe de Brito e Cunha will dive further into these aspects in a skill session on community & impact. He will help us understand how impact investing can be a tool in impact creation in our local context. Felipe, through his experience and research, will share about translocal grassroots initiatives, the conditions they face, and mechanisms being created to overcome barriers to their success. This trans-local exploration will zoom in on examples like energy communities and advocacy groups across Europe and beyond working to create impact. Check out Felipe’s profile for more info on his research.
Philanthropy, fund design and catalytic capital will be the themes of our second skill session. 🧓Jeff Rosen from Tufts University will host us for a workshop on Philanthropy and its Role in Catalytic Capital. Come prepared for an interactive session on fund design and overview of catalytic capital. You’ll get hands-on exposure to the challenges impact first investments face which are designed to build the marketplace.
And there’s another great partner opportunity coming up this week. You can join Scholars of Finance for a Resume, Networking, Interview Workshop on Monday and a Young Professionals Panel on Thursday. Check out furher details for both on our Fall Events page.
November Skill Sessions & Peer Groups
Please get back to us regarding the Skill Sessions you proposed and check out WhatsApp for the November Peer groups we've assigned you to. We would like to finalize all details by
Additional Resources
As we move into the 4th and final module this is now the time for you to take your practice further on your own and apply it to the areas you would like to deepen. Here we’ve organized a few resources that could be of use to you.
The Fundraising Journey of Young Ventures - Village Capital
We were very happy to have Village Capital join us for our last session of the 2024 Spring Cohort of the Fellowship program. With two great speakers, Heather Matranga, VP of Impact Investing, and Nathaly Botero, Innovations Manager, we went deep into the fundraising journey that young ventures and startups are on. We explored why debt and equity are not the only two solutions for funding and why a spectrum of capital needs to be developed to create impact. For more context and the article referenced during the session, please read - The Fundraising Journey, Impact Entrepreneur
Nathaly Botero and VP of Impact Investing, & Heather Matranga in conversation:Village Capital - The Fundraising Journey - YouTube
Finally, Village Capital has a tool to help entrepreneurs understand the funding tools available to them. This is a very helpful learning tool you have access to and can explore. Village Capital developed the underlying framework over 10 years of training thousands of entrepreneurs and working with hundreds of investors across the world. Check out Abaca - Improving access to capital for impact-creating businesses
Doing an Impact Investing Deal - Morgan Lewis
Our partner and supporter Carl Valenstein of Morgan Lewis has been a long-time supporter of the program and previously hosted a deep dive with us on how to make an impact investing deal happen. Carl will come back and give us another workshop on the topic in November as a skill session. Here is a great resource you can check out to learn more about an important part of Impact Investing, making the deal happen.
Carl provides us with some great resources like: - Introduction to Key Legal and Financing Basics - Doing an Impact Investing Deal - An Investor’s Guide to Due Diligence in Early Stage Companies
Check out the recording here
Blended Finance and SDG Investing - UNDP
As part of our Spring program we had a very useful deep dive into Blended Finance by a director at the UNDP’s Sustainable Finance Hub who works on public/private partnerships. Artak Melkonyan helped us to understand investing in the SDGs and the tools available for investors to explore this funding area. Check out the recording for more info.
The UNDP shared with us their training programs to help you access further information on this topic and to upskill yourself. Part of the United Nations Development Program's Sustainable Finance Hub, the SDG Finance Academy brings together trainings on a variety of important climate and blended finance issues. Check it out here We highly recommend the following two online courses which will take 1-2 hours to complete. If you complete either of those you will receive a certificate.
Introduction to Impact Measurement & Management
and
Career Resources
A number of you are in a moment of career pivoting or transition. We want to be a resource for you and are happy to connect and refer you wherever you would like. So please just drop a line. Also, we’ve started to put some resources together that might be of use - eg. job databases and guides that could help you. We’re building this resource with what is helpful so we’d love for you to share feedback, needs and material with us for future cohorts to benefit from. Check out our Google Drive for more.
Included in the drive are resources like
the Vault Guides for specific industries.
Lists of some specific impact career sites to check out
databases on internships and
career maps
A compilation of the EDGE guides & MBA EDGE issues briefings to get you up to speed quickly - Drive Folder
Diversity in Sustainability
One of our partners, Diversity in Sustainability, has an amazing resource that we would give you access to if you are planning to use it. We've confirmed our partnership and are looking forward to offering you two free month of their premium offering. Check out our recording of this orientation call where you will meet Heather Mak the founder and organizer of the DiS Circle. This will help you to learn about all the great resources available to you and how you can accelerate your career and connections in sustainability. https://www.diversityinsustainability.com/
Fellowship Partner - Diversity in Sustainability Orientation
Impact Entrepreneur
Another great partner who we can give you access to is Impact Entrepreneur. We did a previous session with them to explore the platform and their work plus a number of additional learning resources. Watch to learn about the work of Impact Entrepreneur. Impact Entrepreneur is an excellent platform for events, a digital impact magazine, and much more!
Check out the following readings to go deeper into the topic as suggested by Laurie
The Purpose of Capital by Jed Emerson
Adventure Finance by Aunnie Patton Power
Real Impact by Morgan Simon
Impact by Sir Ronald Cohen
CFA Study Materials
We’ve compiled a ton of resources from the CFA if you are interested in going deeper into the topic of sustainable finance and want more technical understanding. Do check out the drive in your own time.
📹 Week 9 Recordings
Community Call 9: New Money in Practice - Creating impactful change & involving our local communities and organizations
📹 Watch here soon
📓 Slides & Resources
Skill Session: Community & Impact with Felipe Brito e Cunha
📹 Watch here soon
📓 Slides & Resources
🙆♂️Felipe's Bio
Skill Session: The Role of Philanthropy in delivering Catalytic Capital with Jeff Rosen
Impact Investing can be defined so broadly as to have little or no meaning. Within this space, there are a subset of investments that seek to achieve impact first and returns second. Within this subset, there is a further set of impact first investments designed to build the marketplace. The Catalytic Capital Consortium defines catalytic capital as, “Capital leveraged to unlock additional investment that would not otherwise be possible. It strengthens communities, expands opportunity and economic growth, and fuels innovation that advances the well-being of people and the planet, while laying the groundwork for mainstream investors to participate in transformative investments.” Efforts to design the kinds of integrated capital stack that achieves best leverage often require philanthropic capital at multiple layers. In this 90-minute session, participants will get hands on exposure to the need and challenges the philanthropic sector faces in filing this critical capital gap
📹 Watch here soon
📓 Slides & Resources
Learn more about Tuft’s Certificate here
🙆♂️Jeff's Bio
Jeff is a Professor of Practice at Tufts University, where he serves as the Director of the Graduate Certificate Program in Impact and Sustainable Investing. Jeff began his professional life in ice cream trucks and spent many years growing and selling food service businesses and serving in senior financial roles for national chains striving to go public. A graduate of Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations and the University of Maine’s School of Resource Economics, Jeff spent 20 years serving as the CFO for the Solidago Foundation. During his time in Philanthropy, Jeff provided board service to several philanthropic affinity groups, including Confluence Philanthropy and Sustainable Food and Ag System Funders. He also collaborated with field partners to design and launch several community investment funds, including PVGrows and the Real People’s Fund. He lives in Northampton, MA with his family.
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