>> Back to November 2017 Issue Financial technology provider ImpactUs announced in Sept and October the onboarding of six additional issuers to its impact investing platform, ImpactUs Marketplace. The Marketplace is a community-driven fintech platform offering institutions, individuals and financial advisors an extensive range of private impact investing opportunities. The first four issuers* are mission-driven
>> Back to November 2017 Issue Change Finance, a majority women-run asset manager, announced in October the launch of its first ETF. The Change Finance Diversified Impact U.S. Large Cap Fossil Fuel Free ETF (CHGX) is the only ETF that uses diversified impact screens to look beyond excluding fossil fuels, taking a comprehensive approach to
It began with a magic trick. When I was young a friend of my father\’s would pull a quarter out from behind my ear, and then make it disappear again. This became an apt metaphor for my relationship with money: one moment there and the next moment gone, feeding two powerful feelings about money: insecurity and lots of fear about never getting it back. My next memory of money was of being gifted with Kennedy silver half dollars on my birthdays (one for every year). Not realizing their worth, I spent most of them, but when I moved some years ago I found a stash of them in a small black bag.
It’s Monday morning, the beginning of a new week. The day starts with greeting the sunrise from our garden that faces to the East. A few minutes of taking in the energy that provides us so many benefits every day, and then some meditation, establishes the foundation for all else. After a stroll in the garden it is time to enter into the technological universe with a quick review of Bloomberg.com and WSJ.com. What is happening on the global stage and in the financial markets? How are the markets doing and how might global factors and the events of the day impact the people that I work with?
As a child, money was tight; often a stressful topic at our house. Money messages included being prudent, entrepreneurial and thrifty. I wore hand-me-down clothes, planted seeds in our victory garden and overheard as my parents argued over whose turn it was to pick up the food stamps. My father taught math at a local high school and then took to the streets as a Fuller Brush salesman in the evenings. To bring in additional income, my mom corrected high school English papers and my father managed apartments to reduce our rent. I learned about the importance of saving money, of looking for opportunities, and of working hard.
For my first 40 years I lived a life of \”noble poverty\”. When I heard that term I had a visceral reaction in my heart and my gut. I felt deeply understood, experiencing relief having named a condition I had lived with since I was a child. It is \”the belief that there is virtue in not having money and that good people do not have it\”. People with this mindset live by the phrase \”it is better to be good and poor than rich and evil\”. Now I understand that this mindset is based on a false dichotomy that you can have one or the other, and not both.
In northern Montana, Doug and Anna Jones-Crabtree restore soil health while growing organic heirloom and specialty grains, pulse and oilseed crops on 4,700 acres. A thousand miles away in Central Minnesota, the Main Street Project sequesters carbon as it transforms 100 acres of bare ground to a permaculture farm alive with hazelnut trees and foraging chickens.
The SRI Conference on Sustainable, Responsible, Impact Investing, is the industry’s seminal event. The 28th annual conference is right around the corner. Thought leaders, investors, and investment professionals from all corners of the Sustainable, Responsible, Impact (SRI) investing universe convene to gain and share knowledge and strategies that align financial performance with positive change. Conference participants are working to catalyze a shift to a more socially equitable and environmentally sustainable economy.
Leading community development financial institution (CDFI) Virginia Community Capital (VCC) and the nationally recognized Center for Rural Entrepreneurship (CRE) announced in June the launch of LOCUS Impact Investing (LOCUS), a new social enterprise to empower place-focused foundations to invest their capital locally to build prosperous, vibrant communities.
Toniic Institute, the global action community for impact investors recently released T100: Insights from Impact Advisors and Consultants 2017. This is the second report in the T100 Research Project, a longitudinal study of 100% impact investing portfolios of Toniic members.
