Money + Meaning

Last year, MIT Solve launched Solve Innovation Future, a first-of-its-kind donor-advised venture fund. The philanthropic venture fund is structured as an evergreen vehicle where proceeds are paid forward into future social entrepreneurs. The evergreen nature allows the fund to provide appropriate forms of capital tailored to each entrepreneur's unique situation. Leading Solve Innovation Future is Casey van der Stricht. In this episode, Casey sits down with Alex to talk about how they landed on the unique fund structure, the innovative types of funding they are providing to entrepreneurs, and her advice for entrepreneurs looking to raise capital.

“It needed to be easier, faster, more dynamic, and more value-add to everybody involved to understand impact. It just doesn't make any sense; people are committing decades of their lives to trying to make a change in the world and the act of figuring out whether or not that’s happening is an exceptional activity.”

In this episode, Alex Kravitz is joined by Sasha Dichter, the Co-Founder of 60 Decibels - an end to end impact measurement company. Previously Sasha served as the Chief Innovation Officer for Acumen, where he led the organization's impact measurement practice and launched the Lean Data initiative that eventually spun out to become 60 Decibels. The conversation covers the state of impact measurement and management, how their data is used to amplify impact, and the recent launch of their COVID-19 dashboard, an effort to track the effect of the pandemic on low income people around the world.

“Finance at some fundamental level is about making bets on the future. Nobody makes money in the present - we only make money because we were right about the future that we bet on. So one really important way to think about investing with a gender lens is to question your assumptions about the future."

- Joy Anderson

On this episode we are joined by Joy Anderson, Founder and President of the Criterion Institute, a leading think tank focused on shaping markets to create social and environmental good. Joy has been at the forefront of the rapidly evolving field of impact investing over the past nearly two decades and is one of the pioneers of the gender lens investing movement. Our conversation touches upon the growth and evolution of gender lens investing, the biggest challenges facing the field, and how knowledge of history helps drive systems-level change.

Please note that the subject of gender-based violence is discussed during this episode.

“It is a privilege to have any investable assets for savings or retirement but if you do, in any amount, you have power. You have the power to invest in companies, in funds, in a financial system and an economy that supports your values. You don’t need to have 6 or 7 figures. Anybody can do it and can do it today.”

- Beth Bafford, VP of Syndications and Strategy at Calvert Impact Capital

In this episode, we dive into the details of one of the most common questions we get: how do you start impact investing? What does it actually look like in practice for someone who doesn’t have a family office or run a foundation? Joining us to walk us through her process of moving her personal portfolio to impact is Beth Bafford of Calvert Impact Capital. We talk about the first steps she took to shift her portfolio, the differing processes across asset types, areas where she still wishes there were better impact offerings, and her most impactful investments to date.

For our 50th episode, we take it back to the basics. What is impact investing? What does it look like across asset classes and impact areas? Is impact investing inherently concessionary? And, mostly importantly, is it working?

Joining us for this conversation is impact investing thought-leader Rehana Nathoo, Founder and CEO of Spectrum Impact, a strategy consulting firm that supports a range of organizations looking to expand their impact investing footprint. Prior to founding Spectrum Impact, Rehana led the Impact Investing program at the Case Foundation, helped design the Bank of New York Mellon’s Social Finance program and pilot impact investment fund, helped lead the Rockefeller Foundation’s impact investing grantmaking program, and supported partnerships at the UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF). She is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor within Georgetown University’s Global Human Development Program, teaching on impact investing and social finance in emerging markets. 

This week’s guest is Antony Bugg-Levine, impact investing pioneer and CEO of the Nonprofit Finance Fund (NFF). Founded in 1980, NFF is a community development finance institution that provides financing and consulting to nonprofits across the country. In his role at NFF, Antony recently helped launch a $75mm Covid-19 response fund to support NYC nonprofit organizations most affected by the pandemic with both grants and interest free loans. Prior to his work at NFF, Antony was a Managing Director at the Rockefeller Foundation, where he led the foundation’s impact investing initiative. He is also the founding board chair of the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) and author of the book “Impact Investing: Transforming How We Make Money While Making a Difference” with Jed Emerson.

The conversation with Antony spans the history and evolution of the field of impact investing, from a revolving loan fund created in Benjamin Franklin’s will to the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 through the meeting where the phrase “impact investing” was coined in 2007. Antony also discusses the direct line between the civil rights movement and the modern field of impact investing. Lastly, he discusses his work with the Nonprofit Finance Fund and where he is finding hope during the current pandemic.

“Our board and our team believe that you can define any societal problem as either a climate change problem or an inequality problem…so our thesis has evolved over the years to bring our resources to bear against those two large challenges.”

The Autodesk Foundation is a private foundation that focuses on how design and engineering solutions can solve some of the world’s most pressing challenges. In this episode, Alex sits down with Joe Speicher, the Executive Director of the foundation, to discuss the evolution of the foundation, how and why they landed on those specific impact areas, the reasons the foundation began impact investing, and why Joe believes that philanthropy is a net negative for society.

MORTAR is a Cincinnati-based accelerator working to help historically marginalized entrepreneurs get the resources they need to start and run successful businesses. Whereas most accelerators pull from as large a pool of entrepreneurs as possible, MORTAR has taken the opposite approach, starting with one specific neighborhood in Cincinnati, Over-the-Rhine, and designing a curriculum to be both relevant and culturally competent for that community. In this episode, Alex sat down with Allen Woods, the Co-founder and Executive Director of MORTAR, to discuss the growth and evolution of the organization, the advantages of localization when it comes to entrepreneurial support, and Allen’s own entrepreneurial journey.

Entrepreneurship is a leading driver of economic growth, job creation, and wealth building yet 83% of entrepreneurs do not have access to either bank lending or venture capital. To reduce this barrier to starting or growing a business, the Kauffman Foundation recently launched the Capital Access Lab. In this episode, Alex sits down with Philip Gaskin, Vice President of Entrepreneurship at the Kauffman Foundation and Agnes Dasewicz, Entrepreneur in Residence and Capital Access Lab Lead. They discuss the challenge entrepreneurs face raising capital, the Foundation’s effort to create systems-level change in entrepreneurial funding, and why this work is deeply personal for them both.

“About a month ago, we asked ourselves at CASE, ‘what can we do really quickly to help entrepreneurs through this crisis?’ We had already seen some very significant businesses in our local area shut down in the first week and that scared me.”

-Cathy Clark, Faculty Director of CASE at Duke

Realizing there was a need for a centralized database of emergency funding sources for entrepreneurs struggling during the current pandemic, Cathy Clark built and launched covidcap.com, a searchable website for entrepreneurs around the world, whether for-profit or non-profit, to find funding sources in their community. In this episode, Cathy sits down with Alex to discuss the conception and creation of the site, the response times she is seeing for entrepreneurs in need of funding, and the role that impact investors can play during this crisis.