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: Expanding solar+storage solutions to communities on the front lines of climate change
The lack of reliable power has direct health consequences for vulnerable communities. Recognizing the devastating impact of power outages on historically underserved communities, The Kresge Foundation and Clean Energy Group began a collaborative process involving many stakeholders to discuss the need for a comprehensive financing strategy to bring solar+storage systems to affordable housing and critical community facilities in low- and moderate-income (LMI) neighborhoods.
Mission, Money & Markets: New website showcases community development finance system
Online resource DevelopStrongCities.org helps visualize how communities thrive and tells the story of community development finance systems.
Mission, Money & Markets: Kimberlee Cornett offers reflections on a decade at Kresge
Kimberlee Cornett reflects on a nine-year long career leading Kresge's Social Investment Practice. "Nine years and 75 deals later, I’m proud of the foundation’s adoption of a full spectrum of tools — from grants to guarantees — and the way the Social Investment Practice works side-by-side with Program staff."
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. Enter the Inclusiv Southern Equity Fund.
Mission, Money & Markets: What should unite Opportunity Zones backers and detractors
Kresge has supported leaders who have created voluntary reporting systems and market norms that we believe could help to solve the issue. But it’s become clear that voluntary action is not enough. It’s time we collectively demand mandatory reporting at the local, state, and federal level as our singular focus.
Mission, Money & Markets: Promoting more and better journalism on Opportunity Zones
Unlike traditionally-structured economic development incentive programs, Opportunity Zones aren’t administered through a state or local agency that would normally provide deal-specific disclosure data, making them a challenge for journalists to cover. The zones also lack specific required outcomes one usually associates with a development incentive, such as jobs created, wages paid or housing units constructed.
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)
Kim Dempsey reflects on her five years at Kresge, a period when the foundation "was making the tricky transition from opportunistic, one-off social investments to an approach more deeply and strategically aligned with Kresge’s Program priorities and more sophisticated in its back-office transaction management."