When we started A to Z we laid out our core values as a team, now memorialized in the about us section of our website. Front and center you will find “transparent.” While we endeavor to lead with transparency in all of our interactions (e.g., sharing a Why We Invested for each investment), we recognize we haven’t been as outward facing with the numbers behind A to Z, and we thought it was high time to rectify that!
Note that this post just focuses on our financial returns. As an impact-first investor, we value our impact returns even higher! But that is for another post.
Overall numbers
A to Z has ~$20M in assets under management. We typically commit between $4M and $5.5M to impact investing each year, spread across 10–15 deals. Our current active commitments total ~$16M.
In our history, we have completed 66 impact investments to 47 unique organizations, totaling ~$26M in commitments and an average check size of ~$400K. To run the organization, it costs us around $700K per year (3.5% of AUM).
While there have been times when we were at 100% of AUM committed to impact, some recent capital inflows and repayments have left us with ~20% of our capital still available for impact commitments. With that said, we place a material and growing portion of our cash into impact-aligned banks.
Three buckets
Our impact-first and capital preservation focus leads us to both direct investments and debt-like funds. We do also have some additional impact-aligned legacy VC funds, which are laid out below for completeness.
While these aren’t perfect buckets, they get pretty close to how we think about our work!
Direct investments
Our direct investments are primarily loans to nonprofits and social enterprises.
Since inception, this portfolio has consisted of 34 positions across 22 companies for a total commitment of $12.9M.
Through 2025, 19 positions have been repaid, while 15 positions remain active ($4.8M total active value), with all in good standing. We have a single write off of $112K.
Our rough weighted average annual IRR in this portfolio is 4.5%.
Direct investments include Acceso, Balloon, Be Girl, BluLever, Bridges to Prosperity, Community Housing Capital, Food4Education, Fortune Society, Fòs Feminista, Fountain Fund, GGEM, Kwanza Tukule, MDaaS, myAgro, NexLeaf, One Acre Fund, Possible Health, Rashak, Somo, Springboard, Swahili Honey, and ZUMI.
Debt-like funds
Across the portfolio, we have a number of impact-first debt-like funds. These range from affordable housing, to employee ownership, to small and medium enterprise (SME) lenders.
Since inception this portfolio has consisted of 17 positions across 13 managers for a total commitment of $6.4M.
Through 2025, 5 positions have been repaid, while 12 positions remain active ($5M total active value), with all in good standing.
Our rough weighted average annual IRR in this portfolio is 3.8%.
Debt-like funds include Apis & Heritage, Acre Impact Capital, AgDevCo, Calvert, Dearfield, Enterprise, Lendable, Maycomb, MSquared, NESsT, Open Road, Project Equity, and WABFF.
Venture capital funds
As we have shifted our focus to impact-first investing, VC has largely fallen out of scope for us. However, for the purposes of transparency, we do have a legacy portfolio of funds that we are LPs in (and still love!).
Since inception this portfolio has consisted of 15 positions across 12 managers for a total commitment of $6.4M, of which $4.8M has been drawn to date.
This portfolio is still young, with many of the funds in the early stages of the “J-curve.” Our median commitment date for these funds is mid-2022.
Our rough weighted average annual IRR in this portfolio is -1.3% (negative).
VC funds include City Light, Collab, Elevar, Foreground, Global Partnerships, Illumen, Kapor, Menterra, Raven, Rhia, Springbank, Ventures Platform, and Women’s World Banking.
Overall return
Bringing these buckets together, our rough weighted average annual IRR across directs and debt-like funds (which is representative of our current strategy) is 4.2%. Importantly, this IRR has remained fairly consistent over the last 5 calendar years, ranging from roughly 3.5% to 5.5%.
If we bring in VC funds to provide a more complete (but less representative) picture, our overall rough weighted average annual IRR is 1.5%.
As an impact-first investor who is happy to sacrifice financial returns for more impact, this is in line with our target expectations. We aim to preserve capital (not grow it) so that we can recycle dollars and continue to create impact. This return allows us to cover some of our expenses (and ideally inflation!), inching us towards sustainability.
Though we are getting further along in our journey, the takeaway message here should be “it’s still early!” While A to Z made its inaugural impact-first investment in 2015, we didn’t begin to ramp up our impact investing portfolio until the summer of 2021.
Now 4+ years later, we have learned a lot, but many of our investments have long durations and it will take multiple cycles to fully understand what we can expect from a financial return perspective.
With that said, we are (cautiously) optimistic that capital preservation is possible with an impact-first investment strategy.
We are committed to continuing this work, continuing to learn, and continuing to share as we go.
Our conviction is at an all-time high — we believe trading some financial return for deeper impact is absolutely worth it. We sincerely hope that more individuals and organizations will create impact-first strategies and portfolios, and we are sharing our results to further encourage this happening. Come on in, the water’s fine!
Here’s to more impact ahead in 2026 and beyond!
*Please note that all numbers in this post are rough estimates. They are directionally correct, but not perfectly precise.
Alex Evangelides is managing director at A to Z Impact.
Editor’s note: This post originally appeared on A to Z Impact’s blog and is being republished on ImpactAlpha with permission.
