Mission, Money & Markets
The Kresge Foundation's Social Investment Practice team — and its partners and colleagues — shares lessons learned and the newest thinking on impact investing each month.
Mission, Money & Markets: Kimberlee Cornett offers reflections on a decade at Kresge
By Kimberlee Cornett
Mission, Money & Markets: A new fund launches to spread equitable financial services in the South
Whether due to a lack of accessible banking services or a fraught history with predatory financial institutions, the lack of banking opportunities has real, long-term impact on people’s lives, reducing their ability to build credit, secure capital and move up the economic ladder. That’s why this week, we announced a $5 million program-related investment into a new vehicle, the Inclusiv Southern Equity Fund. This fund, set to close this fall with $45 million in commitments, will provide secondary capital loans to credit unions, giving them the balance-sheet equity they need to increase banking services and asset-building opportunities to families with low-income across the southern United States. When fully deployed, we expect to reach 30,000 previously unbanked people through this fund.
Mission, Money & Markets: What should unite Opportunity Zones backers and detractors
Editor's note: A version of this blog post also ran on Impact Alpha here.
By Aaron Seybert
Mission, Money & Markets: Promoting more and better journalism on Opportunity Zones
By Greg LeRoy
Mission, Money & Markets: 2 podcasts explore Opportunity Zones with Kresge
Kresge staff were featured on two podcasts discussing the promise of -- and problem with -- Opportunity Zones and explain Kresge's work in response to this new piece of community development finance.
Mission, Money & Markets: A goodbye from Kim Dempsey (or how a platypus earns her wings)
By Kim Dempsey
In September 2013, I attended a Healthy Communities conference at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. Between sessions, I ran into Kimberlee Cornett, the managing director of Kresge’s Social Investment Practice — in the bathroom of all places.
Mission, Money, & Markets: Impact Measurement and Management – 3 ideas for doing it right
By Tom Woelfel
As the impact investing market has grown to an estimated $500 billion, concerns about the field’s relationship to social impact have also increased. The key question is, how do investors know their dollars are truly creating the social change intended?
Mission, Money & Markets: The best kept secrets of the CDFI sector
The default image of a CDFI is a nonprofit, unregulated loan fund. In fact, half of the 1,100 certified CDFIs are not nonprofit, unregulated loan funds. Almost 30% are credit unions and about 20% are for-profit banks, bank holding companies, or venture capital funds.