Money And Meaning

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, shares with Robert Munson, President of SOCAP Global, in a new Money + Meaning podcast. In a Q&A session, they explore the importance of cross-sector events like SOCAP23 and the power of leadership and collaboration for positive social impact through policy, enterprise, and investment.

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 community while creating an event to help drive action on some of the world’s most pressing challenges. This episode features the story behind SOCAP’s origins and a look at its future, drawn from a conversation at SOCAP22. SOCAP Global President Robert Munson facilitated the Q&A with other SOCAP leaders and founders.

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.

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 four food tech companies. They shared the stories behind their brands — and samples of their creations — during an interactive session at SOCAP22.

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 toward a more just and regenerative economy by recognizing, trusting, and investing in the work of Indigenous women.

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 with fashion leaders and funders who are seizing the opportunity to reshape material, supply chain, and consumer systems for greater circularity in textiles. By funding and creating projects to close the fashion ecosystem loop, they are moving forward on a path to decarbonization and realizing new opportunities along the value chain.

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 more resilient future.  This Money + Meaning episode builds on information from a new report from Korn Ferry on The Rise of the Chief Sustainability Officer, which incorporates information from interviews with more than 50 CEOs and CSOs on the role of sustainability in their operations, strategy, culture, and leadership. The conversation, moderated by Imogen Rose-Smith, Managing Director of Confluence Partners, explores how the rise of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations among stakeholders has more companies looking to incorporate sustainability throughout their enterprises and drive business success.

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 organizations and investors are addressing social and environmental issues to build positive impact on communities.

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 social impact with governments and foundations. And he shares why evidence-based approaches are necessary to effectively address the increasing dilemma of homelessness throughout the United States.

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 the Southeast. Benedict College is also a partner in Sorenson Impact Center’s MAPS Project. Using data and a student-centric approach, the MAPS Project aims to help higher education institutions adapt to changing enrollment trends and better serve the needs of more diverse student bodies. In this podcast, Dr. Artis and Dr. Boxer discuss opportunities and challenges at Benedict College and how innovative financial structures can help HBCUs support students on a path toward academic and professional success.

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 access to SOCAP’s broad network of investors, donors, and changemakers.  In fields from fashion to wastewater management to health care, the CWI fellows are building solutions to address some of the world’s biggest challenges. At SOCAP22, several CWI social entrepreneurs shared more about their company’s impact story and the challenges of their work in conversation with Sarah Sterling, Executive Director of Entrepreneurship at SOCAP Global. This episode of SOCAP’s Money + Meaning podcast features highlights of conversations with Angel Chang of ANGEL CHANG, Ting Shih of ClickMedix, Rebecca Hui of Roots Studio, Orianna Bretschger of Aquacycl, and Kelly Nguyen of DrKu

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 it doesn’t naturally go.”  Brennan is featured in the newest episode of SOCAP’s Money + Meaning podcast recorded live at SOCAP22 in San Francisco. In a conversation with Imogen Rose-Smith of Confluence Partners, Brennan discusses Advantage Capital’s 38-question investment matrix, impact measurement, institutional investors, and more.  “Our ethos is quality jobs, real wages, ability to create and grow wealth in some of the toughest communities in the United States,” Brennan says. “We’re going to places capital doesn’t go, probably for a reason.” Founded 30 years ago as one of the first participants in a public-private partnership designed to attract venture capital fi

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 Markets; Adesuwa Rhodes, Founder & CEO of Aruwa Capital Management; and Pratap Raju, Founding Partner of the Climate Collective Foundation.

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 trends, threats and opportunities as impact investing moves more mainstream. This podcast is presented in advance of SOCAP22, held Oct. 17-20 at YBCA in San Francisco.

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, Alex Kravitz is joined by the President of the Impact Fund for Children, Cristina Shapiro. They discuss the innovative fund design that utilizes both grant and investment capital, the multiplying effect of investing in children, and new ways the IF4C is thinking about the use of investment capital to confront challenges facing children around the globe.

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 their innovative Community Pricing Gatherings in 2009. These meetings bring together investors in their flagship Social Investment Fund, borrowers from the fund, and RSF staff to set interest rates each quarter. Instead of relying on invisible market forces to dictate interest rates, these meetings create direct relationships between investor and borrower and have proven to be a risk mitigant for investors. During the conversation, Alex and Jasper discuss the Community Pricing Gatherings, other forms of stakeholder governance, RSF’s new Racial Justice Collaborative, and much more.

“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. During this episode, Meg and Ben join host, Alex Kravitz, to discuss the origin of the participatory funding movement, examples of innovative organizations working to center community voice, and some of the differences between building participation into philanthropic grantmaking vs. impact investing.

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 their third Sustainable Solutions Fund with over $1B in committed capital, which they invest in three broad impact areas: planetary health, people health, and financial inclusion. During the conversation, Shalini talks about the importance of fully integrating sustainability into the investment process. She also discusses Generation’s use of investment roadmaps to identify systems positive outcomes (outcomes necessary to drive change in our economic and social systems) and how they work back from these desired outcomes to identify viable investment opportunities.

“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, marginalized, vulnerable communities and we shouldn’t delude ourselves into believing that finance-first [impact investing] is a magic bullet.” On this episode of Money + Meaning, Alex Kravitz is joined by Greg Neichin, Director and Board Member of Ceniarth, the impact-first single family office of Diane Isenberg. Ceniarth’s investment strategy focuses on geographies and markets where commercial, finance-first investment is not realistic. Investments in these areas, primarily marginalized, rural communities, necessitates a meaningful tradeoff between impact and return. During the conversation, Greg talks about the evolution of Ceniarth's impact-first approach and the importa