What can you expect at SOCAP24? Three full days of networking and learning infused with the spirit of community, the power of connection, and the magic of serendipity—all with the goal of facilitating capital flow for impact. In a new episode of the Money + Meaning podcast, members of the SOCAP Global team share a look at what’s in store at SOCAP24…

Philanthropic funding can serve as a tool to reduce risks in blended finance projects and attract more private investment for sustainable development. As part of a collaborative approach, grants and project financing help innovative opportunities become investment-ready and take steps toward impact at scale. A new episode of Money and Meaning featu…

Explore the advantages of centering community voices in the investment decision process. In this conversation, learn about new models of participatory investment that are helping to build a more inclusive and effective impact investing community. By giving entrepreneurs and grassroots communities a voice and vote in investment decisions, practition…

A new Money + Meaning episode features leaders in healthcare and finance who discuss the widespread housing crisis and how they’re partnering and innovating to expand the housing stock and provide wraparound services for social and financial impact.Por SOCAP (Social Capital Markets)

By shifting to a more just and inclusive approach to philanthropy, funders can help support the development and scaling of more sustainable social enterprises and build long-term impact. It’s an approach that reimages philanthropy by developing trust-based relationships that better center the experiences of community groups on the frontlines of soc…

SOCAP’s annual convening serves as a springboard for ongoing collaboration and conversation, and partnerships are integral to amplifying the event’s impact and reach. In a new Money + Meaning podcast, Michelle Arevalo-Carpenter and Tova Lobatz of SOCAP Global discuss the pivotal role of SOCAP partnerships, their contribution to event content, and h…

By re-examining traditional methods of investing and funding, foundations and endowments are working with partners to connect capital with communities most affected by the climate crisis. This path helps center the voices of people in frontline communities who are most familiar with the challenges and addresses social and environmental impacts, fro…

In this episode of Money + Meaning, Advantage Capital Managing Director Ryan Brennan discusses how the firm continues to evolve its practices and expand its reach. His conversation with Nzinga Broussard of Sorenson Impact Institute was recorded live at SOCAP23. With a portfolio that includes more than $4 billion invested over more than 30 years, Ad…

As the global impact community evolves and expands, so does SOCAP Global’s annual flagship conference. One key element is SOCAP Open, which invites the impact community to submit session proposals and brings new voices and differing perspectives to SOCAP. SOCAP Open offers individuals and organizations the chance to showcase innovative ideas, delve…

A new Money + Meaning podcast episode features a SOCAP23 session exploring innovative funding models that go beyond equity and debt. Three fund managers share their capital solutions designed to better meet the financial needs of many entrepreneurs, especially founders, who often are overlooked in traditional funding markets.…

A Canadian social finance firm is demonstrating the value of a community-driven outcomes tool for positive impact. With a focus on revitalizing Indigenous economies, Raven Indigenous Capital Partners is partnering with communities to address social and environmental challenges and expand access to capital. Their innovative financial projects and pr…

This Money + Meaning podcast features a SOCAP23 panel moderated by Enable Ventures Founder Regina Kline. During the “Closing the Disability Wealth Gap” dialogue, Kline spoke with entrepreneurs from four catalytic, impactful, high-growth startups who are leading the charge in technical innovations specifically for the disability sector. In this conv…

On the final day of SOCAP23, three Content Curation Council members gathered to discuss highlights and insights from the event and take a look at what’s ahead. Matthew Bishop, Senior Fellow at Sorenson Impact Institute, moderated the discussion with social impact leaders Andia Chakava of Afrishela, Morgan Simon of Candide Group, and María Carolina …

With a record of strong growth over the last decade, the impact investing field has the opportunity to lead in new ways and build on that promise by attracting new investors, organizations, and partnerships for action to drive and amplify positive change. That’s part of the message that Jim Sorenson, Founder of the Sorenson Impact Foundation, share…

By embracing a broader view of impact and community from the start, the people who helped found and nurture SOCAP built a strong foundation for an event that continues to grow and connect global changemakers. From the first SOCAP conference in 2008 to the upcoming SOCAP23, the behind-the-stage leadership shares a passion for building the impact com…

In a time of growing global challenges and social divisions, the arts and culture sector presents new opportunities for connection and transformation to drive systemic change.Por SOCAP (Social Capital Markets)

Technology-driven startups and entrepreneurs are crafting products and methods to reduce the food industry’s greenhouse gas footprint. As they create foods with alternative materials and innovations, they also are shaping a more resilient future for people and the planet. This episode provides a behind-the-scenes look at leaders and products from f…

As impact investing makes a difference in communities around the world, practitioners are addressing regional challenges with innovative approaches that can inspire others. Made-in-Canada impact investing approaches to social and environmental issues get the spotlight in this Money and Meaning episode.…

This Money and Meaning episode features a powerful SOCAP22 session with Trisha Etringer, Shelley Buffalo, and Sikowis Nobiss of the Great Plains Action Society, who call for action and support to end the missing and murdered Indigenous women crisis. Pulling from their personal and professional experiences, they share how the private sector can move…

Entrepreneurs and investors are partnering to help improve the textile industry's social and climate impact. With innovative materials and operational changes for efficiency and transparency, they are taking aim at the 1.2 billion tons of CO2 produced annually during textile creation. This Money + Meaning episode features a discussion from SOCAP22 …

As companies face growing demands from customers, investors, employees, and regulators to improve their environmental and social impact, some are creating or adding to the job of chief sustainability officer. Through a broader scope and emphasis, this sustainability-focused role can help organizations meet new expectations and set a path toward a m…

Organizations are expanding their impact mindset to create transparent, holistic approaches that can help shape sustainable supply chains and advance diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. In this Money + Meaning conversation, Amy Brachio, EY Global Deputy Vice Chair for Sustainability, and Imogen Rose-Smith of Confluence Partners discuss how or…

This episode of Money and Meaning is a recording of a fireside chat at the 2023 Sorenson Impact Summit with Randy Shumway, Founder of Cicero Group, and Geoff Davis, CEO of Sorenson Impact. Randy discusses how his more than 20 years of volunteering with people who are experiencing homelessness have influenced Cicero Group’s consulting work for socia…

This episode of Money and Meaning is a recording of an onstage conversation at SOCAP22 between Dr. Allison Boxer, Managing Director of Sorenson Impact Center, and Dr. Roslyn Artis, President and CEO of Benedict College. The college in Columbia, South Carolina, is among the highest-ranked historically Black colleges and universities, or HBCUs, in th…

Empowering women impact entrepreneurs to reach their fullest potential and drive social and environmental change is the goal of the Cartier Women’s Initiative (CWI), which became SOCAP’s newest Entrepreneur Program partner in 2022. Through the SOCAP Entrepreneur Program, CWI fellows and other selected social entrepreneurs from around the globe gain…

For 30 years, Advantage Capital has imagined new possibilities for impact by investing private institutional capital in businesses from traditionally underserved communities. Ryan Brennan, Managing Director at Advantage Capital, says the firm’s goal is to get funding to innovative entrepreneurs poised for growth by moving “capital to places where i…

Biases that limit investors and support organizations are often reinforced by a lack of market visibility. One unexploited solution involves using systems data to boost the visibility of the relationships that small and growing businesses have in the entrepreneurial ecosystem in which they operate. Featured voices: Jason Eaves, CEO of Discover Mark…

For the third year, SOCAP Global is pleased to present the State of the Field and Practice of Impact Investing. Join Fran Seegull, President of the U.S. Impact Investing Alliance; Monique Aiken, Managing Director or TIIP & Co-founder of Make Justice Normal; and Cathy Clark, Faculty Director at CASE at Duke to hear about the current state, emerging …

For 75 years UNICEF has been supporting the well-being of children around the globe, helping to save more children’s lives than any other humanitarian organization. In 2011, UNICEF USA launched an impact investment fund, the Impact Fund for Children (IF4C). Since the fund’s launch, IF4C has deployed close to half a billion dollars. On this episode,…

On this episode, host Alex Kravitz is joined by Jasper van Brakel, the President and CEO of RSF Social Finance. Since the 1980s, RSF has been driving capital to social enterprises supporting a more just and regenerative world. As an intermediary, RSF has long supported direct relationships between transactional partners, which led to the launch of …

“It’s not just about what you invest in, it’s about how you invest.” In their new book ‘Letting Go’, Ben Wrobel and Meg Massey make the case that in order to effectively tackle social challenges, philanthropists and impact investors need to cede control of funding decisions to people with lived experiences of the challenges they are trying to solve…

On this episode of Money and Meaning, host Alex Kravitz is joined by Shalini Rao, Director of Growth Equity at Generation Investment Management. Originally founded in 2004 by Al Gore and David Blood, Generation currently manages over $30B in assets with 100% invested in long-term, sustainable investments. The growth equity team recently closed thei…

“You’ll get no argument from me that there are sectors where moving institutional scale, finance-first money is what’s needed. Our argument is that in places where the market is not functioning, in places where markets have left people behind, that this kind of low-cost money is required in order to make a difference in the lives of poor, marginali…

“Lending has the capacity to transform what people can do based on their capabilities and not necessarily based just on the opportunities that they’ve been dealt. If you believe, like I do, that capabilities are equally distributed but opportunities certainly are not, then lending can be a way to try to level the playing field a bit more.” This epi…

In late 2020, TELUS, one of Canada’s largest telecommunication companies, launched a $100mm corporate impact fund. Named the Pollinator Fund for Good, the fund invests seed and Series A capital in social entrepreneurs working across four impact areas: environment, agriculture, health, and inclusive communities. Joining this episode is Blair Miller,…

Ever since being denied a Small Business Association loan for being a Black woman, Melissa Bradley has dedicated her career to building support ecosystems for historically marginalized entrepreneurs. From her time working in the Treasury Department of the Clinton White House to the recent launch of both Ureeka and the 1863 Fund, Melissa has helped …

Jewel Burks Solomon is the Managing Partner of Collab Capital and the Head of Google for Startups in the US. Having founded and sold her first company, Partpic, to Amazon in her mid-20s, Jewel has made a career out of investing in and helping to mentor traditionally underrepresented founders. Having experienced some challenging investor conversatio…

On this week’s episode, Alex is joined by Dr. Angela Jackson, the Managing Partner of New Profit’s Future of Work initiatives. New Profit is a venture philanthropy that has provided over $325mm in support to social entrepreneurs since its founding in 1998. Their Future of Work initiatives seek to equip workers with the skills necessary to find liva…

As demand for impact investments grow, more and more organizations are creating investment products labeled as ‘impact’. However, without any regulatory body or industry-wide standards, there are significant concerns about impact washing, the practice of branding products as ‘impact’ more for marketing reasons than any social or environmental subst…

On this week’s episode, Alex is joined by George Ashton III, Managing Director of Strategic Investments at Local Initiatives Support Corporation or LISC. George recently helped launch LISC's Black Economic Development Fund. Targeting up to $250mm and initially seeded by $25mm investments from both Netflix and Costco, the Black Economic Development …

On this episode, host Alex Kravitz is joined by Margret Trilli, the CEO & Chief Investment Officer of ImpactAssets, a nonprofit impact investing firm with over $1.2B in assets under management. They discuss ImpactAssets’ flagship donor-advised fund and the surge in both charitable giving and impact investments they have seen in 2020. They also disc…

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 uni…

“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 j…

“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 b…

“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 Syndication…

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 st…

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 no…

“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 sol…

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…

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 Gask…