Returns On Investment

Impact investing types, it seems, are proud globalists. That optimistic, connected, cross-border approach to challenges, solutions and human relationships puts them in a unique position in this peculiar historic moment when walls are going up and strangers are suspect. At the same time, the essential precondition of investing – having capital to invest – means most investors are largely distant from the lived experience of many of the people their investments are purported to benefit. ImpactAlpha's roundtable regulars take on the contradictions of globalism. (Photo: Top view of 1765 de l'Isle globe A 1765 de l'Isle globe, showing top view. Collection of the Minnesota Historical Society.) --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/impact-alpha/message

In the latest Returns on Investment podcast, our roundtable regulars take up the April memo from the Department of Labor that tried, albeit weakly, to walk back the Obama-era guidance about how fiduciaries could consider ESG factors. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/impact-alpha/message

The obsession with financial returns that for decades kept major institutional investors away is now pushing them towards a serious accounting of environmental risks. Ashby Monk joins Dave Chen, the chair of Equilibrium Capital, and David Bank, editor of Impact Alpha, on this episode of Returns on Investment: Institutional Shift. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/impact-alpha/message

A few years ago the Prudential Foundation committed to reaching a billion dollar impact portfolio by 2020, and they're well on their way to reaching that goal. On this episode of ROI, David Bank sits down with Lata Reddy, the Senior Vice President of Diversity, Inclusion & Impact at Prudential Financial and Chair and President of The Prudential Foundation to discuss the impact fund, their place based investing strategy, and the role of mission investing in the fight for social justice. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/impact-alpha/message

If impact investors are worth their salt, they’ll soon –– if not soon enough –– come up with a whole raft of investible solutions to the crushing burden of opioid addiction. The problem may have snuck up over the past decade, but there’s no escaping the costs of the crisis now. As many as 23 million addicts in the U.S. More than 64,000 overdose deaths, most of them opioid-related. The annual economic cost: an estimated $193 billion. On this episode of ROI, our panel discusses where impact investors can have a role in tackling the issue of opioid addiction. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/impact-alpha/message

Corporate venture capital is a thing. And that thing is converging on impact investing. The amount that global corporations put into strategic investments in startup companies last year reached $31 billion across 1800 deals, both all-time records. Today on the podcast David Bank, Imogen Rose-Smith and Brian Walsh discuss Corporate Venture Capital and Impact. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/impact-alpha/message

The billionaires with their family offices command on outsized share of attention from impact fund managers. But, the real dollars, as in trillions, are in the huge pension and sovereign wealth funds around the world. Today on ROI, David Bank speaks with Dave Chen, the head of Equilibrium Capital, about the burgeoning shift towards sustainability and EGS within the world of institutional investors. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/impact-alpha/message

A raft of new social-impact and environmental financing vehicle are emerging from labs, incubators and startup funds. By finding inventive ways to monetize social inclusion and environmental regeneration, the new models are "internalizing the positive externalities." Too wonky? Just say "impact alpha." Returns on Investment's resident blue-sky optimist, David Bank, lays bets that the best new ideas will scale up to attract real dollars. Our curmudgeon, Imogen Rose-Smith, is skeptical that many of the impact investment pilots will graduate from the kiddie table and join the adults in the real world of finance. As always, our host Brian Walsh keeps it lively. __________________________________ Support for this Returns on Investment podcast ​comes from Wunder Capital, an easy way to invest in solar energy projects across the US. With Wunder, you help finance renewable energy and earn up to 7.5% a year. Visit WunderCapital.com/roi​. I nvest in solar projects. Do well and do good. --- Send in a voice message:

It has been said that "for impact investing, every day is international women's day." As the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements continue to demonstrate their staying power, is it time that impact and finance at large take a closer look at gender equality within firms as well as in their investments? Brian Walsh, Imogen Rose-Smith and David Bank discuss in the latest ROI. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/impact-alpha/message

The whole panel is together in Oakland to discuss whether or not California is charting the way forward for the inclusive economy of the future. The golden state does seem to be ahead on issues such as immigration, climate change, and shared prosperity - but is there a flip side to the coin? Listen in as Imogen Rose Smith, David Bank, and Brian Walsh discuss The California Model. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/impact-alpha/message

At a recent hosted at the New York offices of the fintech company Liquidnet, in collaboration with the Tristate Area Africa Funders Network, ImpactAlpha’s own David Bank moderated a panel on “Demystifying Impact Investing” featuring Georgia Levenson Keohane of the Pershing Square Foundation, Liz Luckett of TSEF and Brian Trelstad of Bridges Fund Management.. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/impact-alpha/message

Larry Fink, the CEO of the world largest asset manager, pushed "social purpose" higher on the corporate agenda with his annual letter, warning that every company "must show how it makes a positive contribution to society.” Social activists cheered; activist investors more accustomed to pressuring CEOs for stock buybacks and dividends, groaned. As onetime corporate raider Sam Zell put it, “I didn’t know Larry Fink had been made God.” Our roundtable of Imogen Rose-Smith, Brian Walsh and David Bank pull apart not only Fink's arguments, but the critics' and the cheerleaders' as well. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/impact-alpha/message

Natural spaces have long provided financial value to humans, though historically this has been through the process of extracting resources. Now, as scientists better understand the key role that ecosystems play in supporting life on earth, some banks and investors are looking to incentivize the preservation of wild spaces and species. Today on ROI, the panel discusses conservation finance. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/impact-alpha/message

Steve Case tells The New York Times that his $150 million Rise of the Rest Fund is "not an impact fund." Our Returns on Investment roundtable takes on the contretemps that played out on the pages of ImpactAlpha. Good jobs, overlooked geographies, bottom-up innovation – that sounds like impact. Do funds have to measure (and report)? Who decides? Imogen Rose-Smith, David Bank and Brian Walsh take Rise of the Rest apart (and put it back together again). --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/impact-alpha/message

In 2007 the term Impact Investing was coined at a Rockefeller Foundation convening in Bellagio. The "framers" put the name to a burgeoning yet broad set of investment strategies being practiced on the margins of traditional finance. On this episode of ROI the panel discusses how the impact community has grown and changed in the past ten years, and where it's headed. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/impact-alpha/message

Imogen Rose-Smith plays cautious realist to David Bank's blue-sky futurist in this heated (but always friendly!) Returns on Investment roundtable. At issue is the role of the world’s biggest asset owners – so-called Universal Owners – in the rotation of capital toward sustainability and inclusion. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/impact-alpha/message

As Congress debates tax reform, agents of impact have a chance to 'code' a new tax algorithm. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/impact-alpha/message

David Bank chats with Amit Bouri, the founder of the GIIN, about the past ten years of impact investing - and looks forward to the next ten. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/impact-alpha/message

On this episode of ROI, David Bank chats with technologist and entrepreneur Tim O'Reilly about his new book WTF: What's the Future, and Why It's Up to Us. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/impact-alpha/message

On this episode of ROI, David Bank chats with Morgan Simon of the Candide Group about her new book "Real Impact: The New Economics of Social Change." --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/impact-alpha/message