Capital for Good

In this episode of Capital for Good we speak with Valerie Rockefeller, one of the country's most innovative leaders in the fight against climate change and in our transition to a low carbon economy. Rockefeller chairs numerous organizations including Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, and BankFWD, which have pioneered ways to channel philanthropy and the capital markets towards a more inclusive and sustainable future.

In this conversation, we discuss some of the philanthropic legacies of John D. Rockefeller, and how, and five, six and seven generations later, members of the Rockefeller family are stewarding and directing resources towards strengthening peace, democratic practices, and sustainable development in the United States and around the world.

Rockefeller describes her childhood in West Virginia, where, although not yet a fully formed environmentalist, she saw firsthand the pollution and health impacts of coal and coal mining. Today, she has helped lead the Rockefeller Brothers Fund move to align investing the $1.6 billion assets under management in the foundation with its grant making strategy. Over time, this has involved a process of divesting from fossil fuels and proactively investing in climate strategies while financially outperforming benchmarks by 35 percent. These returns, and a blueprint for process, have allowed other foundations, university endowments, and mainstream investors to follow suit. "The best way to grow a movement is to . . . walk the walk: to do it well, and then share the information about what you're doing," Rockefeller says. In 2020, she co-founded BankFWD to address the fact that, despite global concerns about the harm and risks of climate change, large banks still finance fossil fuels. Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors has responded to the growing demand for impact and sustainable investing guidance with various donor resources and commitments on the environment, and the diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility movement.

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Mentioned in this Episode

• Rockefeller Brothers Fund
• "Investing in our Mission: A Five Year Case Study of Fossil Fuel Divestment at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund" (Rockefeller Brothers Fund, 2020)
• Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors
• "The Year Ahead: Impact Investing and Philanthropy in 2022," (Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, 2022)
• BankFWD
• "Three Rockefellers Say Banks Must Stop Financing Fossil Fuels," (New York Times, 2020)

In this episode of Capital for Good, we speak with Governor Deval Patrick, one of the country's most talented and inspiring leaders, who has blazed many trails across and between the public, nonprofit and private sectors.

In this conversation, we explore some of the through lines in a career that has included successful chapters in civil rights law and activism, policy and politics, and entrepreneurship and investing. We discuss Governor Patrick's decision, after two terms as Governor of Massachusetts, to turn his "social impact" lens to the private sector by launching the first impact investing fund — Bain Capital Double Impact — of a global alternative investment firm. Governor Patrick walks us through BCDI's investment thesis and approach, which is focused on health and wellness, sustainability and education, and workforce development. Early investments included Penn Foster, an affordable education, workforce preparation, and skills development company that achieved strong financial and impact returns through an active partnership with BCDI. "If you can demonstrate that you don't have to trade return for impact, it's a whole new game," Governor Patrick says.

We also discuss the growth of the impact investing field, and more broadly increased corporate engagement on issues of equity, justice, and democracy — efforts that Governor Patrick believes mirror the groundswell in community building efforts that he is involved in at the grassroots level. "I see these two as linked," he says. "This is about everyone taking responsibility for their own civic and political community." We talk about our shared fortunes coming out of the pandemic, and whether our increased attention to issues of inequity, racial injustice, income, and wealth inequality can put us on a better path forward. "I think there is every opportunity to emerge better," he says.

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Mentioned in this Episode

• Bain Capital Double Impact
• Bain Capital Double Impact, "Our Blueprints: Strong Foundations Build Lasting Companies" in Year in Review, (May 2021)
• Penn Foster
• Social Finance
• TogetherFund
• American Bridge 21stCentury's Bridge Together Initiative
• Harvard Kennedy School Center for Public Leadership

In this episode of Capital for Good, we speak with Ai-jen Poo, one of the country's most innovative and celebrated leaders of the labor and women's movements. She is an award-winning organizer, author, and a leading voice on economic inclusion and shared prosperity. Poo is the executive director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, director of Caring Across Generations, co-founder of SuperMajority, and a nationally recognized expert on elder and family care, the future of work, gender equality, immigration, narrative change, and grassroots organizing. She is the author of The Age of Dignity: Preparing for the Elder Boom in a Changing America, co-host of the podcast Sunstorm, and the recipient of countless recognitions including a MacArthur "Genius" award.

In this conversation, we discuss the origins of the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA), a nonprofit organization working to bring dignity, protections and fairness to the growing numbers of workers who care and clean in our homes, the majority of whom are immigrants and women of color, and how NDWA has grown in just fifteen years to include more than 70 affiliate organizations and chapters and over 250,000 members. We explore NDWA's work in the pandemic, including the launch of its Coronavirus Care Fund, which raised and distributed millions of dollars in emergency assistance to domestic workers in need – workers who have long been essential to our collective well-being, and were particularly vulnerable and hard hit in the pandemic. We also examine the power of policy – the American Rescue Plan, Build Back Better, critical legislation at the state and city level – to strengthen the care economy with a thriving safety net and workforce that benefits us all, and the role that Poo and National Domestic Workers Alliance have played in passing these and other critical pieces of legislation, including Domestic Worker Bills of Rights in several states and at the federal level. Poo explains how various tools of change – policy and advocacy, storytelling, media, technology – help shift power and voice and "expand people's imagination for what is possible."

Thanks for listening!Subscribe to Capital for Good on Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Drop us a line at [email protected].

Mentioned in this Episode

National Domestic Workers Alliance

Caring Across Generations

SuperMajority

The Age of Dignity: Preparing for the Elder Boom in a Changing America

Sunstorm Podcast

NDWA Coronavirus Care Fund

American Rescue Plan

Build Back Better Agenda

National Domestic Workers Bill of Rights

We find ourselves at a moment of great challenge – and opportunity. In this season of Capital for Good, we'll explore how the world's health, economic, racial, and climate crises have compelled us to reimagine how leaders across the private, nonprofit, and public sectors champion social and environmental change in ways that truly advance shared prosperity and a sustainable future. This season, host Georgia Levenson Keohane will speak with a dynamic line-up of leaders, including business executive, political and civil rights advocate, and former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick; MacArthur winner and executive director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, Ai-Jen Poo; Jonathan Soros, investor, civic leader, and co-founder of Athletes Unlimited; Donnel Baird '13, cleantech entrepreneur and BlocPower CEO; sustainable investing and philanthropic leader Valerie Rockefeller; Kathy Wylde, the president and CEO of the Partnership for New York City; and more!

In this episode of Capital for Good, we speak with Heather Higginbottom, the president of the JPMorgan Chase PolicyCenter, which develops and advances sustainable, evidence-based policy solutions to drive inclusive economic growth in the United States and around the world. Having served at the highest levels of government in the State Department, the White House, and Capitol Hill, Higginbottom is one of the country's leading experts on a range of domestic, economic, foreign, and budget policy issues.

In this conversation, Higginbottom explains how the PolicyCenter allows JPMorgan Chase to work on a variety of issues related to a more inclusive economy, drawing on the firm's expertise, experience, and resources — its unique insights, perspectives, learnings, and assets — including original research through the JPMorgan Chase Institute and its global philanthropy and business and investment expertise. These include a number of areas of the firm has focused on historically, including neighborhood development (i.e., affordable housing), jobs and skills, small business and access to capital, and significant new commitments related to inclusive growth, including its recent $30 billion commitment to advance racial equity, reduce systemic racism, and help close the racial wealth divide. Using the example of the PolicyCenter's Second Chance initiative, an effort to reduce barriers to employment for people with criminal records, Higginbottom describes how JPMorgan Chase works on these issues within the firm — and with partners like the Business Roundtable and others at the industry level, including, in this case, the recently launched Second Chance Business Coalition.

Thanks for listening!Subscribe to Capital for Good on Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Drop us a line at [email protected].

Mentioned in this Episode:

JPMorgan PolicyCenter

JPMorgan Chase Institute

Unemployment Insurance, Job Search, and Spending During the Pandemic, Peter Ganong, Fiona Greig, Max Liebeskind, Pascal Noel, Daniel Sullivan, Joseph Vavra, "Spending and Job Search Impacts of Expanded Unemployment Benefits: Evidence from Administrative Micro Data" (JPMorgan Chase Institute, 2021)

A Path Forward: a $30 Billion Commitment to Advance Racial Equity (JPMorgan Chase)

JPMorgan Chase Targets More Than $2.5 Trillion Over 10 Years to Advance Climate Action and Sustainable Development (JPMorgan Chase)

Second Chance Agenda (JPMorgan Chase)

Second Chance Business Coalition (JPMorgan Chase)

About Heather Higginbottom:

Heather Higginbottom is president of the JPMorgan Chase PolicyCenter, which develops and advances sustainable, evidence-based policy solutions to drive inclusive economic growth in the United States and around the world. Prior to joining JPMorgan Chase, Heather served as chief operating officer of CARE USA, a $650 million international nongovernmental organization that provides humanitarian and development assistance in over 90 countries reaching 80 million people per year. Heather served as Deputy Secretary of State for Management & Resources for the United States State Department from 2013 to 2017. While there, she represented the Department in the National Security Council, led diplomatic engagement on key issues, and oversaw operations and management for the 70,000 person Department. In the White House, Heather served as Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget, functioning as chief operating officer and a principal architect of the federal budget, and as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Council. Heather has held senior positions on Capitol Hill and led policy development in two presidential campaigns. Heather is an accomplished expert in a wide range of domestic, economic, foreign, and federal budget policy development. She is a skilled public speaker who has regularly testified before Congress, in the media, and before key audiences. Heather holds a BA in political science from the University of Rochester and a master's degree in public policy from the George Washington University. Heather serves on the boards of directors of Girl Scouts of the USA and the US Soccer Foundation.

About the Capital for Good Podcast

Presented by the Tamer Center for Social Enterprise, and hosted by Georgia Levenson Keohane, seasoned executive, award winning author, and an adjunct professor of social enterprise at Columbia Business School, the Capital for Good podcast provides a chance to hear from corporate and civic leaders about their visions, plans, commitments, and on the ground efforts to build a more just, inclusive, and sustainable society. Each episode features in depth and candid conversations with leaders across the private, nonprofit, and public sectors on unpacking solutions to some of our most urgent challenges. Learn more at bit.ly/KforGood.

In this episode of Capital for Good we speak with Roy Swan, the director of mission investments at the Ford Foundation and a national leader in the fields of sustainable finance, impact investing, and community and economic development.

In this conversation, Swan describes how his childhood aspirations for a career helping people, and his decades of experience in banking, community and economic development, and sustainable finance, have culminated in his work at the Ford Foundation where, he says, "our job is all about making the world better." Swan recalls his enthusiasm when learning in 2017 that Ford had committed $1 billion of its then $12.4 billion endowment to mission-related investing: "I thought, the Ford Foundation and Darren Walker have just moved the world." Swan joined the foundation from Morgan Stanley shortly thereafter and has helped shape and execute its mission investing strategy, focusing on private investments that achieve market rate returns and social impact in areas of affordable housing, financial inclusion, quality jobs, and identifying diverse fund managers to deploy Ford's capital (more recently it has also expanded into biotech and health tech in the global south). Swan says that he has never been more hopeful about the future of impact investing, chiefly because we now have the data that underscore the cost — social and financial — of deep social and environmental problems (i.e., the $16 trillion lost over the last two decades in the United States to racial gaps in wages, education, housing, and investment) and the positive social benefits and economic and financial returns that come from fairness, equity, and responsible corporate behavior.

Thanks for listening!Subscribe to Capital for Good on Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Drop us a line at [email protected].

Mentioned in this episode:

• Mission Investments (Ford Foundation)
• Transformative Capital: How Mission-related Investing Can Deepen Foundations' Impact (Ford Foundation)
• Closing the Racial Inequality Gaps: the Economic Cost of Black Inequality in the US (Citi GPS, 2020)
• The Economic Impact of Closing the Racial Wealth Gap (McKinsey & Company, 2019)
• The Good Jobs Institute at MIT
• The Good Jobs Solution, Zeynep Ton (Harvard Business Review, 2017)

About Roy Swan:

Roy Swan is the director of mission investments of the Ford Foundation, where he leads the foundation's mission investments team, managing Ford's portfolio of mission-related investments (MRIs) and program-related investments (PRIs), and working to expand and strengthen the impact investing field. Before joining Ford, Roy served as managing director and co-head of global sustainable finance at Morgan Stanley. During his time at Morgan Stanley, global sustainable finance committed over $13 billion in community development transactions. Among his prior experiences, he was the founding chief investment officer of New York City's Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone (UMEZ), a federal initiative to bring new resources to distressed urban communities, which played a key role in Harlem's economic rebirth. He also served as CFO at Carver Bancorp, a Harlem-based publicly traded financial institution and the nation's largest African American managed bank. Over the course of his career, Roy has worked in corporate law at Skadden Arps, investment banking at The First Boston Corporation, Salomon Brothers, and JPMorgan, and finance at Time Warner. Roy serves on several nonprofit boards, including the Dalton School, Enterprise Community Partners, Low Income Investment Fund, and the Partnership for After School Education. He also serves on the advisory boards of several private equity funds. Roy received a bachelor's degree from Princeton University and a JD from Stanford Law School, where he was an editor of the Stanford Law Review.

About the Capital for Good Podcast

Presented by the Tamer Center for Social Enterprise, and hosted by Georgia Levenson Keohane, seasoned executive, award winning author, and an adjunct professor of social enterprise at Columbia Business School, the Capital for Good podcast provides a chance to hear from corporate and civic leaders about their visions, plans, commitments, and on the ground efforts to build a more just, inclusive, and sustainable society. Each episode features in depth and candid conversations with leaders across the private, nonprofit, and public sectors on unpacking solutions to some of our most urgent challenges. Learn more at bit.ly/KforGood.

In this episode of Capital for Good we speak with Martin Whittaker, the founding CEO of JUST Capital and a leader in the field of sustainable finance, impact investing, and responsible business.

In this conversation, Whittaker describes how his own career in sustainable business and investing led him to JUST Capital, a nonprofit dedicated to aligning corporate behavior with the values of the American people. We discuss developments in the last several years, vastly accelerated by the COVID-19 health, economic, and racial crises, which have elevated the "S" in "ESG," shining a spotlight on social concerns — issues of worker health and well-being, diversity, equity, inclusion, racial justice — alongside calls for action on the "E" of environmental sustainability and climate change. Whittaker notes that companies have seen that "silence is not really an option" on a range of social and environmental issues. Accordingly, JUST Capital, which has historically relied on "data, measurement, metrics, rankings, etc." to influence corporate behavior, now finds these tools "necessary, but not sufficient" and is partnering more closely with companies — "playing an inside game" — to help them become more responsive to the needs and values of the American people.

Thanks for listening!Subscribe to Capital for Good on Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Drop us a line at [email protected].

Mentioned in this episode:

• The Coronavirus is a Test of Stakeholder Leadership: Here's Why, Martin Whittaker (Forbes, 2020)
• Is COVID-19 Killing Shareholder Primacy?, Martin Whittaker (Forbes, 2020)
• 2021 Rankings (JUST Capital)
• Corporate Racial Equity Tracker (JUST Capital)
• Worker Financial Wellness Initiative (JUST Capital)
• COVID-19 Corporate Response Tracker (JUST Capital)

About Martin WhittakerMartin Whittaker is the founding CEO of JUST Capital and is responsible for the overall leadership of the organization. He is also co-founder and board member of the CREO Syndicate, a family office investment network; a board member of the Carbon Disclosure Project US; and a member of the Forbes finance council and Forbes contributor. He was recently named to the 2020 NACD Directorship 100 — the annual list of the most influential people in the board room and on corporate governance — and to Business Insider's 2020 List of 100 People Transforming Business. Previously, Whittaker was a founding partner and investment committee member at Sonen Capital, an impact investing firm, where he led private equity, real asset, and direct investing activities. Whittaker has also served as director of MissionPoint Capital Partners, a family office-led private equity firm; senior vice president at Swiss Re, where he was part of the environmental and commodity markets team; and managing director at Innovest Strategic Value Advisors, Inc., a pioneering sustainable investment advisory and research firm. Whittaker received his PhD from University of Edinburgh, an MBA from the University of London, an MSc from McGill University and a BSc from University of St. Andrews.

About the Capital for Good PodcastPresented by the Tamer Center for Social Enterprise, and hosted by Georgia Levenson Keohane, seasoned executive, award winning author, and an adjunct professor of social enterprise at Columbia Business School, the Capital for Good podcast provides a chance to hear from corporate and civic leaders about their visions, plans, commitments, and on the ground efforts to build a more just, inclusive, and sustainable society. Each episode features in depth and candid conversations with leaders across the private, nonprofit, and public sectors on unpacking solutions to some of our most urgent challenges. Learn more at bit.ly/KforGood.

In this episode of Capital for Good, we speak with Cheryl Dorsey, a trailblazer in the social entrepreneurship movement, and the president of Echoing Green, a global nonprofit that supports emerging social entrepreneurs and invests deeply in their ideas and leadership.

In this conversation, Dorsey fuses the personal and professional, explaining how, from an early age, she was encouraged and inspired to address the economic and racial disparities in the world around her — from her childhood in an unusually diverse Baltimore neighborhood to her medical school years at Harvard where she saw black babies dying at three times the rate of white babies in communities neighboring the world's premier hospitals. As head of Echoing Green, an organization that, over its 30-year history, has invested in more than 800 dynamic leaders across 86 countries, Dorsey has observed and walks us through some of the important shifts that have occurred in the field of social innovation, including more changemakers embracing for-profit business models to solve problems. She has also long advocated for greater access to philanthropic and commercial capital for people of color; Echoing Green's recent report on racial disparities in philanthropy and new Racial Equity Philanthropic Fund have provided a roadmap for others in the field. We conclude with some of Dorsey's insights on history and public health. "I had a strange obsession with plagues in college and a lot of my time was spent studying pandemics, especially the bubonic plague," says Dorsey, who concentrated in history and science as an undergraduate. She reminds and exhorts us, "pandemics simply amplify the structural inequities that already exist. They reveal our fault lines in a way that puts them front and center. But they also are moments in time that offer up great opportunity… We have a moment to rethink and re-imagine so many things about our world… How will we seize this moment?"

Thanks for listening!

Subscribe to Capital for Good on Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Drop us a line at [email protected].

Mentioned in this episode:

• Racial Equity and Philanthropy: Disparities in Funding for Leaders of Color Leave Impact on the Table, Cheryl Dorsey, Jeff Bradach, Peter Kim (Bridgespan, 2020)
• Echoing Green Announces New Racial Equity Philanthropic Fund (Echoing Green, 2020)
• Epidemics and Society: From the Black Death to the Present, Frank M. Snowden (Yale University Press, 2019)
• Goldman Sachs Commits $10 Billion in Investment Capital and $100 Million in Philanthropic Capital to Impact the Lives of One Million Black Women, Goldman Sachs (2021)

In this episode of Capital for Good we speak with Judy Samuelson, the founder and executive director of the Aspen Institute Business and Society Program and author of the new and important book, The Six New Rules of Business: Creating Real Value in a Changing World.

In this conversation, Judy Samuelson helps us understand how and why the rules of business are changing – for the better. She explains that while "the corporation is not itself moral or immoral," businesses can be responsible forces for good and "market civitas." Via a number of compelling examples, Samuelson discusses new and different components of risk (intangibles like reputation and trust drive value, not just hard assets), conceptions of business purpose and shareholder primacy, and the role of employee activism and advocacy in shaping corporate behavior. In companies large and small, she describes why "culture," and no longer "capital," is "king."

Thanks for listening!Subscribe to Capital for Good on Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Drop us a line at [email protected].

Mentioned in this episode:

The Six New Rules of Business: Creating Real Value in a Changing World (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2021)

In this episode of Capital for Good, we speak with Wes Moore, bestselling author, combat veteran, social entrepreneur, chief executive officer of the Robin Hood Foundation, and one of the country's leading voices on issues of economic opportunity, and social, and racial equity.

Moore's first book, The Other Wes Moore, a perennial New York Times bestseller, captured the nation's attention on the fine line between success and failure in our communities and in ourselves. He is also the author of the The Work, Discovering Wes Moore, This Way Home and the recently released, Five Days. Moore grew up in Baltimore and the Bronx, where he was raised by a single mom. Despite childhood challenges, he graduated Phi Theta Kappa from Valley Forge Military College in 1998 and Phi Beta Kappa from Johns Hopkins University in 2001. He earned an MLitt in international relations from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar in 2004. Moore then served as a captain and paratrooper with the US Army's 82nd Airborne Division, including a combat deployment to Afghanistan. He later served as a White House Fellow to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Before becoming CEO at Robin Hood, one of the largest anti-poverty forces in the nation, Moore was the founder and CEO at BridgeEdU, an education platform addressing the college completion and job placement crisis. Moore has also worked in finance as an investment banker with Deutsche Bank in London and with Citigroup in New York.

In this wide-ranging conversation, we begin with Robin Hood's response to the COVID-19 crisis in New York City, where it has successfully raised and deployed more than $65 million in emergency relief across hundreds of organizations. We also examine how the deep social, economic and racial disparities that existed in health, wealth, income, employment, educational outcomes, justice involvement, etc. that existed pre-COVID have informed and centered Robin Hood's work in the pandemic. Moore walks us through some of the ways in which Robin Hood has begun to address the structural biases and inequities in philanthropy that that have resulted, historically, in drastic under-funding of organizations led by people of color. We also touch on the role of philanthropy in advocating for anti-racist and anti-poverty policy, the role of business in promoting racial equity, and the power of storytelling, as exemplified by Moore's latest book, Five Days. "I choose to be one of the people who chooses hope," Moore says. "While progress is not inevitable, it is possible, and that becomes our role and our responsibility: to really push for that progress that we think is important when it comes to creating a better future."

Mentioned in this Episode

• Robin Hood Relief Fund
• Racial Equity and Philanthropy: Disparities in Funding for Leaders of Color Leave Impact on the Table, Cheryl Dorsey, Jeff Bradach, Peter Kim (Bridgespan, 2020)
• The Power Fund: Investing in Leaders of Color, Robin Hood
• The Black Voices for Black Justice Fund, Black Voices
• Blue Ridge Labs at Robin Hood
• Robin Hood Poverty Tracker reports here, Columbia Center on Poverty and Social Policy