ImpactAlpha Podcasts

Host Brian Walsh takes up ImpactAlpha’s top stories with editors Jessican Pothering and David Bank. Up this week: The latest in Africa’s carbon markets, from nature-based solutions to clean cooking; which wealthy athletes are getting into the impact investing game; and debriefing this week’s Mission Investors Exchange conference.

To try ImpactAlpha Edge for yourself, ⁠⁠click here⁠⁠.

Story links:

• "Outcomes and offtakes spur a 250,000-acre restoration project in South Africa," by Jessica Pothering.
• "Why has it been so hard to crack the code on clean cooking solutions," by Jessica Pothering.
• “Wealthy athletes are getting into the impact investing game,” by Roodgally Senatus.
• “Agents of Impact share new narratives and continued resolve at Mission Investors Exchange,” by David Bank and Dennis Price

Host Brian Walsh takes up ImpactAlpha’s top stories with editor David Bank. Up this week: What’s significant about Uganda’s national pension fund’s effort to stand up a locally focused fund of funds; unraveling the controversy surrounding KKR’s lucrative employee ownership exit from CoolIT; and, unpacking the failure of the impact advisory firm Align Impact.

To try ImpactAlpha Edge yourself, ⁠click here⁠.

For more on these stories:

• “Let KKR do its thing while we convert thousands more companies to 100% employee ownership,” by Aner Ben-Ami
• "With shared ownership, $4.8 billion sale of CoolIT gives workers a cut of AI-driven gains," by Roody Senatus
• "Better financing can make employee ownership a game-changer for workers," by Antony Bugg Levine
• “Pension fund in Uganda readies a $100 million fund of funds to create jobs – and savers,” by Lucy Ngige
• “After 12 years, advisory firm Align Impact to shut down at the end of the month,” by David Bank

Dawn Lippert of Elemental Impact joins David Bank. The nonprofit accelerator and investor has for over 15 years been identifying climate solutions grounded in community benefits. Among the topics covered: the gap in financing first-of-a-kind commercial projects, AI and energy infrastructure, and a new role for the environmental movement now that renewable energy is rolling out at scale.

Host Brian Walsh takes up ImpactAlpha’s top stories with editor David Bank. Up this week:

• "Dear Shareholders: Your votes and your voice are needed more than ever," by As You Sow's Andrew Behar
• “Impact investors seek to assert human agency over the future of AI,” by David Bank and Dennis Price
• “Collaboration Fund sparks a conversation around M&A in impact investing field-building,” by David Bank and Amy Cortese

To try ImpactAlpha Edge for yourself, click here.

Correction: Sorenson Impact Institute, not Foundation, is hosting the Collaboration Fund as well as the Webinar next week.

Smitha Das of World Education Services, or WES, joins David Bank for this episode. WES has amassed its balance sheet not from a wealthy individual or a major corporation, but from the operations of its own nonprofit social enterprise -- and is now on a path to investing 100% of its $300 million in assets in full alignment with its social mission.

Host Brian Walsh takes up ImpactAlpha’s top stories with editor David Bank. Up this week: How the economic impacts of war in Iran are rippling through energy, fertilizer and food systems; a look at ImpactAlpha Edge; and, a public reckoning with an aquaculture investment gone wrong.

Relevant links:

• “With imported gas in short supply, Indian households green their kitchens,” by Shefali Anand

• "⁠Persian Gulf blockade stokes demand for local, bio-based fertilizers⁠," by Amy Cortese
• "The ImpactAlpha Edge: Actionable Intelligence for Agents of Impact," by Dennis Price
• "Aqua-Spark’s founders on lessons learned and the path forward after eFishery scandal,” by Amy Novogratz and Mike Velings
  

Russell Sprole of Virta Ventures joins David Bank to talk about why Virta expanded its equity-light, software-focused climate-tech investment strategy to include hardware, AI and blended capital stacks.

Virta Ventures has been an active and early user of ImpactAlpha Edge, ImpactAlpha’s premium platform of data and tools for fund managers and other Agents of Impact.

For more on the firm check out out David's piece on the firm's strategy from last year.

David Bank is joind by Carol Galante of the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley and The Housing Lab. Carol is a proud “houser,” as affordable housing practitioners like to call themselves. David speaks with Carol to identify some of the policy and finance levers that can make housing more affordable in California and beyond.

Lyneir Richardson of Chicago Trend joins David Bank for this Agents of Impact podcast. Trend acquires and improves shopping centers in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods. The twist:  Investment structures that enable local residents to become co-owners on the same terms as institutional investors.

David speeks with Lyneir about how such local buy-in bolsters the properties, why even a $1,000 stake in commercial real estate can change a family’s trajectory, and how broad-based community ownership can help close the racial wealth gap. 

Host Brian Walsh takes up ImpactAlpha’s top stories with editor David Bank. Up this week:

• "Conflict in the Middle East creates (even more) refugees in need of livelihoods, services and impact investment," by Lucy Ngige.
• "Valuing Aging" Agents of Impact Call (5:05).
• " Profit and punishment: The portfolio risks lurking inside private prisons,"by Andrew Behar (10:45).