Katie Naeve, Root Capital
Since coming to the fore in the late 2000s, impact investing has unlocked the potential of countless social entrepreneurs around the world. Despite this impressive growth, many enterprises across Latin America still lack access to the financing they need to combat some of the greatest challenges they face: poverty, climate change, and social inequity. During a plenary session at Confluence’s 11th Annual Practitioners’ Gathering, we discussed how social entrepreneurs are stepping up to address these colliding crises, and how we, as ...
Kidan Araya, Wallace Global Fund
Climate Day at Confluence's 11th Annual Practitioners Gathering rounded out with an energizing conversation discussing how we can invest our financial resources to end energy poverty by investing in women internationally. “Providing Energy Access to All by Investing in Women” was the call to action and the subject of the Closing Keynote - Riverside Chat between powerful advocates Damilola Ogunbiyi, CEO of Sustainable Energy for All and Special Representative for the UN Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All; the Honorable Mary ...
Lisette Cooper, PhD, Fiduciary Trust International
On a winter evening in early 2017, I met with a close friend, a former venture capital professional, for dinner in Harvard Square. We found ourselves commiserating about the recent presidential election and discussing the “Me Too” movement. One of her daughters and I had each just attended the ‘Pink Hat’ Women’s Protest March. My friend, Linda Wisnewski, and I were animated as we compared notes. Linda said, “I want to take action! I want to make a difference with my money to support women. I know we have made gender lens investments, but what ...
Edie Farwell, Confluence Philanthropy
To set the stage for Confluence’s 11th Annual Practitioners Gathering in June, the Climate Solutions Collaborative hosted a two-hour webinar titled Farm to Fork and Back Again: Non-Extractive Approaches to Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food Sovereignty on May 11, 2021 to lay the foundation for discussion on sustainable, equity-minded agriculture and opportunities for investors across risk appetite, returns profile, and asset class.
The webinar focused on regenerative and restorative agriculture, featuring a panel of experts who ...
Akasha Absher, Syntrinsic Investment Counsel
“If you can see it, you can be it,” is a phrase so often used to inspire. While it may be true for some, for others just because they can “see it,” doesn’t mean they can “be it,” as many lack access (e.g., connections, capital, education, etc.).
My first real career aspiration after wanting to be an artist and/or a ballet dancer was to be a businesswoman that bought and sold companies. I had just finished watching Pretty Woman and Richard Gere’s job fascinated me. It was my first glimpse at Wall Street and after some research, I could ...
Liz Sessler, Capshift
Earlier this spring, Liz Sessler, Vice President of Products and Partnerships at CapShift, was happy to join Cyrus Kharas, Co-Head of Arabella Advisors Impact Investing Team, and Loren Blackford, Chair of the Sierra Club Foundation’s Investment Committee, for a webinar Confluence hosted to discuss how recoverable grants are an innovative tool for donors with donor-advised funds (DAFs).m Through CapShift’s work with DAF providers and nonprofits such as Partners In Health, we’ve seen firsthand how recoverable grants can ...
Confluence is pleased to support The U.S. Department of Energy’s proposed foundation for technology innovation. Please view the video linked below to listen to our CEO, Dana Lanza's remarks at the hearing and the full discussion.
Numerous federal agencies have non-profit, non-governmental foundations that work with them to advance their missions. The CDC and NIH foundations, for example, have made important contributions to public health during the pandemic. The flexibility and agility of such foundations allow them to undertake activities ...
Bob Bancroft, Nathan Cummings Foundation
The entrepreneur Nathan Cummings often said that “nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must be first overcome.” That guidance has always served our foundation well—and especially so when our trustees voted unanimously in 2017 to activate all our resources, not just our grants, in service of our mission. I can now report that the benefits have been even greater than we had hoped.
In the hope of helping other foundations seize this opportunity, we’ve just published Values Proposition: How and Why We Transformed Our ...
Ivy Jack, Head of Equity Research NorthStar Asset Management
As a child growing up in Baptist churches in Louisiana, I would hear older folks say “Prayer changes things.” Throughout tough periods over the years, my father would routinely question me about my prayer life. I would complain about something and my father would ask, “Have you prayed about it?” Oftentimes, I might roll my eyes in frustration because I couldn’t understand how talking to God was going to immediately change my situation for the better.
Well, decades later, I understand that praying is not about directly changing one’s ...
Dana Lanza, Confluence Philanthropy
As we planned for the Fourth Annual Advisors Forum, scheduled six weeks after President Biden’s inauguration, we knew that our members would be ready to decompress and “Reset” after exactly a year of the pandemic. We structured this year’s event to offer a member-only space for an honest exploration of the challenges confronted and those that remain on the horizon.
Even as the pandemic appears to wane with the promise of mass vaccination, complex challenges remain, such as the climate crisis, the challenge of true democracy, increasing ...
Jetta Wong, Clean Energy Innovation Project at ITIF
It was an honor to speak at Confluence Philanthropy’s Climate Solutions Summit this month. Particularly intriguing was the collaborative nature of the event, and the sharing of new ideas on how to engage each other and important parts of the US innovation system to further the development of new clean energy technologies. Confluence is a compelling organization, and the ideas and activities of its members should be shared broadly so others may learn and adopt its transformative investment practices. Sharing successes and supporting new ideas ...
Sarah DeNicola, Confluence Philanthropy
The opening plenary during the Racial Equity themed second day of the 2021 Advisors Forum focused on how to support BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) investment managers and was moderated by Larry Lawrence, Executive Director of MSCI ESG Research. Lawrence opened the session by centering discussion about how just 1.3% of money is managed by women or racially diverse managers. He then engaged panelists John Barker, Managing Director of Investments at the Kresge Foundation and Shuaib Siddiqui, Surdna Foundation Director of Impact ...
Nicole Sawran, Pivotal Ventures
The year 2020 was remarkable for women in public office. Record numbers of women ran for and won seats in Congress and in state legislatures. The first woman was elected Vice President. And she also happens to be the first Black woman and first South Asian woman elected Vice President.
But despite this progress, women—and women of color, in particular—are still underrepresented as candidates and office-holders at every level of public office in the United States. In the 2020 election cycle, women were only about a fourth of all ...
Greg Neichin, Ceniarth
While much of Confluence Philanthropy’s 2021 Climate Solutions Summit centered on the mammoth challenges of climate change mitigation, with conversation focused on topics such as the Paris Accord and China’s Climate Policy, we at Ceniarth were happy to have the opportunity to lead an off-the-beaten-path breakout session about climate justice and energy access.
We were a small group of six in attendance, a sparse gathering, perhaps indicative of the fact that most impact investor interest in climate change still remains focused more on ...
Edie Farwell, Confluence Philanthropy
At the 2021 Climate Solutions Summit there was no shortage of consensus that this current window of opportunity is our best chance to address climate change. COP 26 is on the near horizon, and the Biden-Harris Administration and China both recently sent signals they are very much on board to effect change. As investors, we must move immediately and ambitiously to move capital if we are to avert climate disaster.
In a discussion on embracing the Paris Accord, moderator Aimée Christensen started off explaining that it will take $150 ...
Shilpa Patel, ClimateWorks Foundation
We’ve just wrapped up the Confluence Climate Solutions Summit. The day was heavily devoted to “net-zero” – a much bandied term that seems to pop up everywhere these days, from country commitments to corporate targets to industry campaigns. Our break-out session tried to make sense of what this means for the impact investment community and philanthropy more broadly.
What exactly is net-zero?
In a sentence: Net-zero is a balancing of produced emissions with negative emissions. To be consistent with a 1.5⁰C warming scenario, we ...
Stacey Faella, The Woodcock Foundation
On the opening day of Confluence’s Advisors Forum, Democracy Day, we had the privilege of hearing from keynote speaker Desmond Meade, President and Executive Director of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition. Desmond’s successful leadership is anchored in his proximity to the issues on which he leads. We heard his incredible story of overcoming hardship, from homelessness, addiction, and felony convictions, to becoming a leading advocate on behalf of those around him who were impacted by the criminal justice system. As he shared, in 2016, ...
Jasmine Rashid, Candide Group
It was an honor to share space at Confluence this year with my friend and colleague Tanay Tatum-Edwards, Founder and CEO of FreeCap, and to be joined by a number of asset managers and philanthropic leaders who came in asking not just how do we comprehensively divest from the prison industrial complex,but what next? I personally love to spend time collectively imagining the “what next,” which so many of us are actively building through our actions and capital investments today.
We began the session with one question: “How many people ...
Mark Spalding, The Ocean Foundation
We believe that climate change will transform economies and markets, and that firms producing climate mitigation or adaption solutions will outperform the broader markets over the long run.
Thus, we are all climate investors now. What does this mean? It means this is no time for patience. Act now. Don’t wait. We do not need more data. Do it for your future, for your children’s future, and certainly for all future generations.
It also means that you can still stick to your existing themes and areas of interest. Don’t stray from ...
Alexandria Murnan, Travois
I was honored to be invited to the Confluence Philanthropy Advisors Forum to lead the discussion for the session "Investing in Affordable Housing with a Racial Equity Lens." I direct the affordable housing team at Travois, a Certified B Corporation focused exclusively on promoting housing and economic development for American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian communities, and I am grateful for the opportunity to elevate the story of tribal communities.
Since the “inception” of this country, racism has systemically impacted the ...
