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Blog Archives: March 2020

Decolonizing Wealth Intensive

March 31, 2020
Edgar Villanueva, Decolonizing Wealth
I was thrilled to lead the first Decolonizing Wealth Intensive, our new day-long workshop experience, at Confluence’s 10th Annual Practitioners Gathering last month. It was only fitting to gather philanthropists and donors from around the world in Puerto Rico, a modern-day colony of the United States with a powerful history of colonial resistance. Puerto Rico, which continues to be at the behest of colonizing debt from the United States, is emblematic of the responsibility we all have to decolonize wealth. It was a full-circle moment for me, ...

Loan Guarantees

March 27, 2020
Catherine Covington, MCE Social Capital
In the United States alone, there is more than $900 billion sitting on the pristine balance sheets of private foundations. Yes, some foundations have expanded their impact toolkit beyond grants to include program related investments (PRIs), mission related investments (MRIs), and shareholder advocacy, but there are other ways that foundations can not only continue their level of community support but possibly even grow it.  One way is through loan guarantees. This is a quiet but powerful investment tool that has been around for hundreds of ...

Predictive Analytics Can Deliver More Sustainable Outcomes

March 19, 2020
Lynelle Cameron & Ryan Macpherson, Autodesk Foundation
All investors make decisions without knowing what the future holds — uncertainty is baked into the job description. But savvy investors use data and insights to make better decisions, increasing the likelihood of successful outcomes. That’s why it’s common practice for investors to analyze the financial fundamentals of a company by examining market insights and forecasts before allocating capital. Impact investments, now with more than $500 billion in assets worldwide, have a dual purpose: making money and having a measurable positive ...

Confluence Announces a Fresh Mission to Usher in a New Decade at Our Tenth Anniversary Gathering

March 17, 2020
In 2020, at the launch of a new decade, Confluence Philanthropy celebrates our tenth anniversary. The Board of Directors chose Puerto Rico to serve as the springboard for a retreat-styled Practitioners Gathering to mark these milestones in a warm, intimate, and poetic setting. The Gathering provided the community a space for sharing, group reflection, and calls to action. Looking toward a climate-impacted future and the social, political, and financial challenges we face over this next decade, we recognize that we all must move beyond ...

Coherence: A Plenary Reflection about Systems Thinking

March 17, 2020
Dr. Elizabeth Sawin, Climate Interactive
Coherence is the alignment of time, investment, and attention with core values over time and across sectors and scales. Seeking coherence is a strategy for steering systems towards desired goals, especially when time is short, resources are limited, and uncertainty and disruption abound. Analysis using computer models of climate change, like the ones created by our team at Climate Interactive, show that while it is still possible to limit global temperature increase to 2°C and thus meet the goal of the Paris Agreement, a truly ambitious ...

The 10th Annual Practitioners Institute: Reflections from Investment Managers, “Embrace and Inspire”

March 17, 2020
Matthew Weatherly-White, The CAPROCK Group
In this opening Practitioners Institute panel, four experienced values-aligned investment professionals unpacked the last decade: the surprises, the disappointments, the successes and the confirmations. And they explored current developments that have the potential to shape not only the coming, decisive decade, but also to shift the direction of capitalism into the distant future. The discussants included Matthew Weatherley-White, Managing Director, The Caprock Group, as moderator; and Patricia Farrar Rivas,  CEO, Veris Wealth Partners, ...

Love and Resilience in the Decisive Decade

March 16, 2020
On September 20, 2017, Maria hit Puerto Rico as a Category 5 hurricane with winds up to 165 mph; just five days after Irma, another Category 5 hurricane with winds up to 185 mph passed over the island. The devastation that Maria left on the island is greater than anyone could have imagined, but the love and resilience that rose within the island will be known as the greatest testament to the strength and perseverance of the Puerto Rican people. Luis Miranda, Jr. was the moderator for the evening discussion at the 10th Anniversary ...

The 10th Annual Practitioners Institute: Reflections from Foundation Leaders

March 16, 2020
Greg Ratliff, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors
Ten years ago the concept of impact investing was born from the 2008 financial crisis and became an inspiration for a new way to invest with values. Over the past decade, the industry has grown in ways beyond our best-held dreams and, in others ways, not quite as much as we’d hoped. The opening session of the 10th Annual Practitioners Gathering brought together some of the institutions and individuals that helped launch Confluence Philanthropy for reflection and provocative discussion about how far we’ve come, and the journey ahead as we seek ...

Decarbonizing Bank Lending

March 16, 2020
Ivan Frishberg, Amalgamated Foundation
The conversation swirling around the Annual Gathering this year was significantly focused on the newly announced mission for Confluence and what it meant to take our focus beyond just impact investing to real changes about how we implement all capital management decisions. The potential for what this change in mission could really mean was clearly taking shape in the session and side conversations on the banking sector and its role in meeting (or exceeding) the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement. At present, the banking sector is ...

Seeking Coherence after Puerto Rico

March 16, 2020
Lisa Renstrom, Bonwood Social Investments
The 10th Annual Confluence Philanthropy gathering in Puerto Rico resonated with diverse insights, practical examples, philosophical thesis, stories and knowledge. We heard memories from Confluence’s founding and first decade and the foreshadowing of bravery, inclusion, passion and fight in the coming, decisive decade. Participants joined together with intention, love and in community.  My highlight was Elizabeth “Beth” Sawin’s remarks whose team at Climate Interactive produced the first simulated climate model for negotiators at COP 15 in ...

Cash for Impact

March 04, 2020
Mike Ivancie, CNote
There’s a record $14 trillion in total deposits sitting in U.S. banks; yet less than 1% of those funds are being used for social impact. Mission-driven investors, including foundations, have a key role to play in leveraging these idle dollars to strengthen, rather than weaken, the social causes and values they support. To help move the needle on impact investing, a group of technology companies, Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs), and advisory firms are working to create tailored options and products that provide clients ...

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