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Grateful to Leslie Maasdorp, CFO and VP of the New Development Bank, for taking the time to come to Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs to speak with us about “Multilateral Development Finance Reform in an Era of Rapid Environmental Change” and share his own experience in activism, finance, public service, and international development. Inspiring. Leslie’s talk was a (very well organized) worldwind tour of development finance from 1944 to now – noting that while the institutional framework has not changed as much as the world has, there is gathering momentum for an update. Environmental change cannot be ignored – and industrial policy, central banking, risk reporting and management, and market expectations are evolving in response. Multilateral development finance is also starting to shift: toward more efforts to work as a system, to use public and concessional capital to leverage private investment, to reconsider the management and allocation of risk. Leslie walked us through a few of the design hypotheses embedded in the New Development Bank as well as some of the proposals from the G20 Expert Group on MDB Reform. Exciting times. 

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It’s been such a privilege to help research, design, and release the latest report from Alliance for Entrepreneurial Equity: The State of Black Business. This is a foundational report for our joint initiative between Third Way & National Urban League. We dove into publicly-available data from the Federal Reserve, US Census Bureau, and other various sources to focus on Black-owned employer businesses with at least two employees. And we took an expansive look at their attributes, performance, and challenges. The State of Black Business uncovers a dozen insights that illustrate significant disparities in access to capital, market opportunities, and resources. For example, we found that Black-owned businesses are: * Growing…Slowly: Seeing year-over-year growth but are still drastically underrepresented. * Small: 97% have less than 20 employees, and 3-in-4 have fewer than five employees. *Young: Likely to have been in existence under two years. *Flying under $100k: Taking in less revenue than other businesses. *Often Shut Out of Financing: Far more likely to experience pervasive barriers to accessing capital. *Infrequent Contract Recipients: Inadequately represented among government contract awardees. Report can be found here: https://lnkd.in/e588SMwS It’s been wonderful working with Imani Augustus Rachel Evans Madeline Burke Stephanie DeVane Tara Murray Dennis G. Serrette on this vital research.

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Exciting news! Revolve Fund has been selected as part of the 2024 Transformative 25. This collective of funds, intermediaries, investors, and individuals is dedicated to shifting power and mobilizing capital for financial justice. Learn more about T25 and their mission today at https://lnkd.in/dG6meZR5 #financialjustice #T25 #impactinvesting

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Great article by Ghada Abdel Tawab, Otto Saki & Sally Roever. Civic space has always been a powerful tool for organizing, sharing ideas, and holding power to account. It catalyzed the end of apartheid, advanced reproductive rights for Latin American feminists, and fueled global climate change movements. However, civic space is elastic: it can expand widely or be forcibly restricted. Workers, the world's largest organized movement, intuitively understand the importance of civic space. Despite facing immense challenges, they are using this space to counteract authoritarian abuses. A powerful example is the resilience of waste pickers. These 20 million "invisible environmentalists" play a critical role in urban sustainability, recycling 60% of the world's plastic and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Yet, they face severe marginalization and unsafe working conditions. Supported by WIEGO, Latin American waste pickers spent six years building their collective voice to secure a hearing at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. This milestone moment marked the first official recognition of waste pickers' rights by a major human rights body. Victories like these protect and expand civic space and inspire other workers to organize for better conditions. The global waste pickers' movement has influenced UN Plastics Treaty negotiations, promoted extended producer responsibility, and inspired a documentary showcasing their fight for rights. In May 2024, the International Alliance of Waste Pickers held its first Elective Congress, a vibrant civic space where waste pickers from around the world elected their leaders and united for international recognition. Hosted by Argentina’s Union of Popular Economy Workers, this historic Congress was a milestone decades in the making. Together, let's support and expand civic space for all workers, ensuring they can continue to fight for their rights with dignity and justice. #LaborRights #CivicSpace #EnvironmentalJustice #WastePickers #GlobalSouth #WorkersUnite #HumanRightshttps //https://lnkd.in/gbhayubd

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Check out this fantastic article on how philanthropy can adapt to infuse risk capital / catalytic capital to leverage private capital and financial markets in to address the Sustainable Development Goals: “To Play to its Strengths, Philanthropy Must Evolve and Embrace Risk” from the African Venture Philanthropy Alliance: https://lnkd.in/dqta9qAu

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𝐆𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐞𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐮𝐬𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐬 𝐂𝐥𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐅𝐮𝐧𝐝...  Social Finance are partnering with the Healey Administration to create the Massachusetts Climate Careers Fund. This will be an outcomes-based workforce fund designed to fill climate workforce gaps, increase access to economic mobility for workers, and support a diverse clean energy workforce. It's great to see more being done to help fill the skills gap in the Climate Tech space and hopefully we will see more of these types of funds being started! What do you think about this new fund? Any other cool developments you've seen in this space to help improve the skills gap? ⬇ #smartbuildings #climatetechnology #skillsgap #carboncapture #energyinnovation

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 ⭐ Reflecting on Impact This month, my colleague Anne Lufkin-Riaño, our board member Murray Dalziel, and I had the pleasure of attending the Total Impact Summit, hosted by ImpactPHL. The experience provided valuable time for reflection, leading to three key insights about our work at WeavingImpact: 1. Community-Centric Focus: The work we do with our partners means we need to know how they measure success. We need to move at the pace of the community because, after all, it's about them, not us. 2. Local Talent: We know there are valuable assets in communities; there are innovators on every street corner, which enables us to over-index on talent. 3. Shared Success Metrics: Understanding how our partners measure success is essential for meaningful collaboration. As Q2 comes to a close, I’d love to hear about your Q2 learnings and insights. Let’s continue to enhance and develop our impact together. #ImpactPHL #WeavingImpact #CommunityFirst #NonprofitLeadership #Q2Reflections

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This week, as we celebrated The Rockefeller Foundation's 111th anniversary, Rajiv J. Shah shared some thoughts on what the world and philanthropy needs to do to make the large-scale change needed amid an accelerating climate crisis. The history of The Rockefeller Foundation and philanthropy more broadly make clear it’s possible to change the world for the better for everyone. Today, as we address the most serious threat facing humanity today, it is more crucial than ever for organizations, philanthropies and others in civil society to be bolder and think bigger. Read Raj’s note to see how The Rockefeller Foundation is updating and applying its model for the climate era. https://lnkd.in/ez_GT3AA

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The path to shared prosperity requires bold action from philanthropy. In our recent Bridgespan report "Boats for a Rising Tide: How Philanthropy Can Help Narrow the Racial Wealth Gap," we explored how foundations can leverage their full spectrum of investment options -- equity, debt guarantees, concessionary capital, and grant funding – to ensure many more people benefit from the abundance our economy creates. Among the many great examples, The Kataly Foundation stands out. In a series of editorials in Impact Alpha, Kataly's Chief Investment Officer Lynne H. takes us on the journey of what it takes to stand by values of racial justice, stewardship, healing, and repair while executing a vision of regenerative investment. From investing cash deposits with credit unions, CDFI's, and cooperatives to funding municipal bonds in communities of color, Kataly is putting its resources behind its mission. While the journey is not easy, Kataly is proving that it's worth it. https://lnkd.in/ed7CsYWa

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this part, #MYGOD: "If we are to build a just and inclusive world, those with wealth and power must mitigate their need to appear smart and special, acknowledge that they don’t have the moral authority to set priorities, accept that their role is to ensure that the people and communities most affected by systemic injustice have the resources and autonomy to lead, give Multi-Year General Operating Dollars (MYGOD), and otherwise get out of the way."

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Edgar Villanueva, Roland K., and many others delivered powerful keynotes on cross-sector power dynamics, inequality in philanthropy, and how to create meaningful change with technology #ai #digitaltransformation https://lnkd.in/eQEMWYGs On systemic wealth inequality:  "Poverty is a product. Wealth extraction, it's in our DNA." "1.5 trillion in philanthropy is invested in private markets. Where is the money? Who controls it? Who benefits? 95% continues to build your wealth." On rethinking traditional philanthropy models: "Generosity is not enough. Systems of dependency to redistribution." "Reparations are needed, not just generosity." Successful models were highlighted: "Philanthropic partnerships that mobilize communities, nonprofits, corporations and governments can create lasting change." "The 'shared value' model partners corporations and philanthropy to directly address problems." On using unrestricted funding: "Liberated capital - trust community advisors to redistribute resources. Have real relationships with the community." The role of AI in social impact: "Amplification of human intent. Use AI for good intent to support human intelligence." "AI can personalize at scale and streamline processes." We all need to critically examine legacy systems, redistribute power and wealth more equitably, and embrace new models - including AI - to create meaningful social impact. Brandolon Barnett, Kate Behncken, Imani Dunbar, Aimée Eubanks Davis Meg Garlinghouse, Erin Lewellen, Ellen McClain, Aneesh Raman, Erin McHugh Saif, Devi Thomas, John P. Wiltshire, Kelly Fukai, C.M, M.B.A, Sal Khan

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Echoing Green announces the launch of the Signal Fund, a financial tool that provides capital to social innovators at critical growth stages. Signal launches with $15.6 million raised and prioritizes founders with overlooked potential for scalable social impact. Signal Fund aims to test a new set of financial mechanisms and model more broadly accessible investment vehicles that can help fuel transformational social change and innovation globally. It will disrupt the current funding landscape that is misaligned with the needs of social innovators. “In the current economic climate, fundraising for entrepreneurs has become increasingly difficult,” said Echoing Green President, Cheryl L. Dorsey. “Through Signal Fund, we are strengthening and de-risking a new pipeline of social innovators — ones that we believe will expand the set of leaders who are too often overlooked by mainstream philanthropy and financial institutions. This fund can help proven social innovators move past the proverbial valley of death that so many start-ups face, achieving organizational milestones recognizable to traditional investors without compromising impact.” #YesWeInnovate https://lnkd.in/dgfjDqAd

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The Hive Fund under the leadership of Erin Rogers, Melanie Allen, and their incredible team is the best of philanthropy. Other funders should take note: ✅ Make multi-year, general operating grants; ✅ Be bold, take risks (philanthropy is society’s risk capital); ✅ Trust the leaders and communities on the ground doing the work; ✅ Use your unique position in the ecosystem to foster coalitions and networks, utilizing grants to incentivize and reward collaboration. Not rocket science, and yet, in so many places it seems philanthropy does not embrace these approaches. #philanthropy #leadership

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[NEW PODCAST] Trends in direct #fundraising: keeping it real with Erica Waasdorp Erica is President of A Direct Solution and a guru on direct fundraising and especially monthly giving for nonprofits and NGOs. I am on a journey to deepen my understanding of resource mobilization and fundraising - including public fundraising. Erica was the logical person to ask. ﹖How do I know whether my organization has a culture of philanthropy? What do I *see*, when such a culture is in place? (I've seen it lacking in some cases, which makes you wonder where those staff think their salary comes from) A pretty critical question for many social sector orgs that depend significantly on public engagement and fundraising from the broader public.   In this #NGOSoulAndStrategy podcast episode, the arc of my interview with Erica goes something like this: 🎤 How has the field of direct giving by small donors, and monthly giving as a donor practice in particular changed in the last 10-20 years? 🎤 There is much discussion about the need for a shift towards ethical storytelling, with local program participants in the driver's seat, and a focus on local persons' agency. The raison d'etre for this is clear. However, to what extent can we align this with what motivates small donors (at least in traditional fundraising 'markets') to give? And what about fundraising in new middle/high-income countries where public fundraising is growing? 🎤 Is child sponsorship on life support as a fundraising strategy - or not quite? 🎤 At a more practical level, what hurdles do nonprofits need to overcome in persuading donors to shift their practice to monthly giving? Erica, who also happens to be a 'Dutchie' (like myself) and who has lived in the United States for decades (like myself), is keeping it real in our interview! Listen in! Podcast Audio: https://lnkd.in/ebjV2ea3 Podcast Video: https://lnkd.in/esranCYQ   What does your experience with resource mobilization, especially direct public giving, tell you? PS: Misty McLaughlin, another specialist-extraordinaire on resource mobilization, Kim Goldsmith-N'Diaye and I will host two mini-masterclasses as well as two conference sessions on the role of team structures and team operating models in effective nonprofit/NGO fundraising performance at #IFC2024 (International Fundraising Congress, organized by the The Resource Alliance) in October of this year. DM us if you plan to attend and want to learn more about our sessions. #nonprofits #podcast #NGOPodcast #NGOInsights #PodcastInterview #NGOCulture #NonprofitManagement #PodcastDiscussion #NGOStrategies #5OaksConsulting #PodcastEpisode #resourcemobilization #nonprofit #fundraising

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✨ Discover the Power of Storytelling for Innovation! ✨ On the first day of the Virginia Housing Alliance’s (Brian Koziol, Arley Bell) inaugural BIPOC Leadership Institute (BLI) cohort,  where I’m a co-facilitator along with Ebony Walden, we had the privilege of walking the historic streets of Jackson Ward in Richmond, VA, with a remarkable group of housing leaders (Justin Ferguson), as Gary Flowers a fifth-generation Jackson Ward resident shared powerful stories of this community, known as one of the Black Wall Streets of the South, and highlighted stories of vision, determination and resilience from leaders such as: 🌟 Maggie L. Walker: The first African American woman to charter a bank, breaking barriers and inspiring us to think beyond limitations. 🌟 William "Bojangles" Robinson: A philanthropist and entertainer who invested in the safety, education, and future of Black children, teaching us persistence in the face of challenges. 🌟 John Mitchell Jr.: The iconic editor of the Richmond Planet, using his words to inspire and influence the community towards advocacy and change. Their stories inspire and remind us of storytelling's profound impact on innovation. How can we use storytelling to inspire new ideas and grow as leaders?  Here are three ways in which I believe stories can influence innovation: 🚀 Inspiring Vision: Stories help us dream big and think creatively. 🚀 Learning from Challenges: Narratives of perseverance teach us resilience about overcoming challenges we will encounter. 🚀 Building Empathy: Shared experiences foster connection and collaboration. 🔗 Check out the full article, "A Lesson from Jackson Ward: How Our Stories Can Inspire Innovation", on Jordansydnor.com to explore how we can use storytelling to innovate and grow as leaders. Let's transform our communities by embracing the lessons from Jackson Ward. What stories from your past inspire your innovative thinking? Share in the comments below! 👇🏾 #Innovation #Leadership #Storytelling #JacksonWard #Inspiration #Community

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We can see 👀 that community-led collaborative funds are emerging as powerful tools for driving equity and justice. These funds 💵 unite diverse stakeholders around shared goals, pooling resources to address complex social challenges. By fostering collaboration among donors, nonprofits, and community leaders, collaborative funds amplify impact and drive meaningful change at scale 💬. Community-led collaborative funds prioritize equity and justice, channeling resources towards systemic solutions💡and underrepresented communities. 🌍 By bringing together a diverse array of perspectives and expertise, these funds amplify grassroots initiatives, promote inclusive decision-making, and dismantle barriers to opportunity. 🙌🏽 🙌🏾 🙌🏿 Through strategic investments in areas such as education, healthcare, and economic empowerment, community-led collaborative funds drive tangible progress towards a more just and equitable society. How can we leverage these funds to address systemic inequalities and advance social justice? 🌀 Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below! How do you envision community-led collaborative funds shaping the future of philanthropy? #collaboration #PhilanthropicAdvising

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Some of the most innovative work in #impactinvestment is happening in food and ag (IMHO). In this week’s #SocialImpactPowerChat, we dig into the details with the whip smart Founding General Partner of Rethink Food, Rini Greenfield. She walks us through how the team invests to better the entire food system, and gives us all the gift of the “Mr. Burns Test”. This chat will leave everyone - but especially #socialentrepreneurs and #impactinvestors - with A LOT to think about. Take a listen here:https://bit.ly/3SbfSRl

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The learning is hot at #ImpactPS24 The Impact Partners Network gathers folks that work in the social sector ecosystem to innovate new approaches and use the power of community to drive solutions for us / by us. #nonprofits #nonprofit #philanthropy #impact #collaborativeLearning Aimee Cubbage and Mandy Kutschied, SHRM-SCP shared knowledge about #eq and #emotionalIntelligence (in the Multiverse) Self awareness Self regulation Intrinsic motivation Empathy Social skills Leaders who have empathy outperform those without by 40% ☀️ Rubin Singh of OneTenth Consulting explored the unique technology challenges facing nonprofits today … and why tech implementations fail and how we can do better. NTEN and Institute for the Future Great technology requires great people. Sam Adiv and Sam Dorman remind us in their session: “Collaborative Greatness”: Building Thriving Client-Partner Alliances This summit brings together an incredible collection of humans. We don’t need dreamy data or cutting edge tech stacks. We need collaboration and strategic alignment. First. (#downwithRFPs) Institute for Nonprofit Practice Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP Global) Garvin Maffett, Ed.D. Julie Michelle Morris Technology Association of Grantmakers Salesforce Microsoft Nonprofit Leadership Alliance LinkedIn for Nonprofits BPOZ Brand Leadership Three Little Birds Agency

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Award-winning environmental and justice leader Tzeporah Berman just addressed the financial impact leaders at the Confluence Philanthropy annual Climate Solutipns Summit, sharing deeply moving realities of the suffering already from climate impacts, costing $16M an hour and growing. Fossil fuels are responsible for 83% of historical emissions, and we have enough fossil fuels in existence or under production today to reach the budget of keeping us to 1.5 degrees. The International Energy Agency (IEA) agrees there is no need for investment in new fossil fuel supply in our net zero pathway. Yet still, public funds are subsidizing fossil fuels to the tune of $7 trillion dollars per year! Oil and gas companies spend on average about 1% on renewable energy development but 80% of advertising spend…. I am proud to be a champion of the FFNPT, and at last year’s Sun Valley Forum we featured Tzeporah, the Treaty Chair, interviewed by the great Lisa Friedman of The New York Times, and there as a result of connections made, an alliance of banks supporting the treaty was sparked led by Amalgamated Bank and Global Alliance for Banking on Values. Follow, support, align to and collaborate with Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative. And join us for this year’s Sun Valley Forum to learn, connect and act to accelerate all efforts while in a magical setting of inspiration. https://lnkd.in/gayr4zVg

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