Money + Meaning

“I encourage all of us who are the dreamers to continuously put forth new visions for what is possible - particularly in this moment - because, if we can’t do it right now, when can we do it?” - Rodney Foxworth, CEO of Common Future

Common Future, formerly BALLE, is an organization dedicated to shifting capital into local communities, uplifting local leaders, and accelerating the development of local economies. In this episode, Lindsay sits down with Rodney to discuss his work, why it is more urgent now than ever, and the opportunity our new reality creates for rebuilding antiquated and exclusionary systems.

In his plenary address at SOCAP17 Jed Emerson said, “We need to understand the purpose of capital is not simply the absence of evil from our pursuit of wealth, something hard enough and potentially impossible for us to achieve, but the active pursuit of healing, wholeness, and love in this world.” In this episode, Lindsay sits down with Emerson, a personal mentor and longtime pillar of the SOCAP community, to discuss the field of impact investing from its origins to the present day. 

"The global water challenge is really about balancing the micro and the macro. People, industry, agriculture–everybody needs water in the right place, in the right quantity, at the right quality, and at the right time. Doing that is unbelievably hard.” –Tom Ferguson

Imagine H2O is an organization with a mission to empower people to develop and deploy innovations to solve water challenges globally. On this episode, Alex sits down with Tom Ferguson, VP of Programming at Imagine H2O, to discuss the scope and urgency of today’s water challenges, some of the most promising solutions, including technological innovations he is seeing on the horizon, and what investors can do to help scale solutions that work.

How can technology help extend access to financial services to the 1.7 billion unbanked people in the world? In the latest episode of Money and Meaning, Lindsay Smalling interviews Kiva’s Chief Strategy Officer, Matthew Davie, about some of their new solutions to the challenges of financial exclusion. Davie talks about Kiva Protocol and other new ways they are working to change the underlying system in order to expand access to capital in emerging markets.

Blended finance deals have the potential to drive trillions of dollars of institutional capital into high impact projects in emerging markets and could lead to massive progress towards achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. In this episode, Joan Larrea, CEO of Convergence, explains how blended finance can accelerate solutions to poverty, hunger, and the other SDGs. She also talks about the future of the blended finance industry and why we need to really hustle to get on a billions to trillions trajectory if we are to achieve the SDGs on time.

TechSoup was the first nonprofit in the US to launch a national direct public offering (DPO). In the year since the launch of this growth capital campaign, they have raised over $8 million, with individual investments ranging from $50 to $1 million. In this episode, Alex Kravitz has a conversation with Rebecca Masisak and Ken Tsunoda about their unique approach to fundraising, lessons they have learned from the experience, and how the DPO has helped TechSoup grow and strengthen their community.

Featured Voices:

Rebecca Masisak, CEO, TechSoup

Ken Tsunoda, VP of Development, TechSoup

Laura Callanan and her organization Upstart Co-Lab are working to convince investors that they have a tremendous opportunity to drive impact through investments in the arts, culture, and heritage-based businesses that make up the creative economy. Souls Grown Deep is a Foundation and Community Partnership dedicated to documenting, preserving, and promoting the cultural traditions and work of African American artists from the South. Under the leadership of Maxwell Anderson, Souls Grown Deep has partnered with Upstart Co-Lab to invest $1M in opportunities that align with their mission. On this episode, Lindsay Smalling interviews Callanan and Anderson about their partnership and the opportunities that creative lens investing offers for investors, museums, creatives, and communities.

For the final episode of 2019, we bring you highlights from the SOCAP19 mainstage. The theme that ties each of this episode’s featured highlights together is that they all demonstrate the power of cross-sector collaboration. The clips highlight examples of ways that leaders from across the global marketplace have been working together in innovative ways to solve some of the greatest challenges of our time.

Featured Voices:

Neville Crawley of Kiva with Helen Avery of Euromoney

Bonnie Glick of USAID with David Bohigian of OPIC

Kat Taylor of Beneficial State Bank with Tim Freundlich of ImpactAssets

Susan Taylor Batten of ABFE with Rip Rapson of the Kresge Foundation

The evolution of microfinance from radical idea to global industry was surprisingly fast, sometimes messy, and filled with successes and failures. Despite numerous challenges, microfinance grew into a global industry that has helped lift millions of people out of poverty. As impact investing continues to move into the mainstream, what can the industry learn from the early days of microfinance? This week’s episode, recorded live at SOCAP19, features a panel of leading microfinance experts and practitioners who share lessons they learned and offer insights into the current state, and potential future, of impact investing.

Featured voices:

Geoff Davis of Cicero Impact Capital

Johanna Posada of Elevar Equity

Arun Sharma of International Finance Corporation

Monica Brand Engel of Quona Capital

Though no one can predict exactly how automation, robotics, and other emerging technologies will shape the future of work, we can be sure that workers will need to be able to quickly learn new skills in order to compete. In this episode, you’ll hear Jean Shia, Head of Portfolio and Investment at Autodesk Foundation, lead a SOCAP19 panel discussion among active investors in workforce tech. Each expert shares their unique approach to investing in the future of work, data and trends that are driving their strategies, and the solutions they are investing in to help ensure that workers are not left behind.

Panelists:

Jean Shia, Autodesk Foundation

Amon Anderson, Acumen America

Jason Palmer, New Markets Venture Partners

Sonali Kothari, ETF@JFFLabs

Elizabeth Garlow, Lumina Impact Ventures