ImpactAlpha Open

Finding adaptation alpha + Building wealth through “fair-share appreciation”

Dennis Price ¡ November 18, 2025

Hi there, Agents of Impact! Welcome to ImpactAlpha Open, a free weekly sampling of the top news and views from ImpactAlpha.

📞 Get PluggedIn: Inside LabStart’s blueprint for early-stage climate founders. What does it take to graduate breakthrough climate technologies from universities and national labs to venture-ready startups? On the next PluggedIn, Sherrell Dorsey speaks with Troy Daley of LabStart about how the incubator nurtures first-time founders; what the federal government gets right (and wrong) about tech transfer; and how the pathway from research to real-world application is essential for climate solutions. Get PluggedIn, Today at 10am PT / 1pm ET. RSVP to log in.

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In this week’s Open:

  • S2G Investments’ theory of change 
  • ‘Fair-share appreciation’ models to build wealth through homeownership 
  • A call for proof, not promises, at COP30
  • Calls: Financing growth firms in Africa and braiding capital for climate startups 

Let’s jump in. â€“ Dennis Price

Must-reads on ImpactAlpha

  • Adaptation alpha: S2G Investments looks for outperformance as climate change drives ‘system-level shifts.’ The flip side of the rising risks and escalating damage from a changing climate is the huge opportunity to help industries and ecosystems adapt. This “Age of Adaptation” is defined by both “volatility and extraordinary opportunity,” Chicago-based S2G Investments declares in its first annual report since spinning out of Builders Vision, the family office of Walmart heir Lukas Walton. ImpactAlpha’s Erik Stein reports. Learn more.
  • From affordable home ownership to ‘fair-share appreciation’ and generational wealth. The 50-year home mortgage, an affordability solution floated by President Trump last week, is an idea whose time… would saddle buyers with a pile of debt and reduce their ability to build equity in their homes. However, a new crop of “shared appreciation” solutions that slide those levers in innovative ways are going to market in select cities around the country, including Washington, DC, Detroit, Philadelphia, Raleigh-Durham and Charlotte, report ImpactAlpha’s David Bank and Roodgally Senatus. Check them out.
  • At COP30, let’s stop counting promises and start funding proof. In rural Kenya, a smallholder farmer named Josephine nearly gave up on her dream farm after rains failed and a well dried up. A solar irrigation pump from SunCulture, financed through installments and a $100 down payment borrowed from her son, changed everything. For Tamer El-Raghy of Acumen Resilient Agriculture Fund, or ARAF, Josephine’s story is “proof that when you give farmers the right tools, they do the rest.” Keep reading.

Sponsored: Accelerating Impact

🚀 Are you an emerging fund manager raising your first or second impact vehicle?

Accelerating Impact’s multi-year acceleration programs are open for applications, offering emerging fund managers technical and financial support to launch their investment vehicles. The accelerator is looking for new teams with innovative and impactful strategies across climate and social finance. They offer two options:

  • The International Climate Finance Accelerator supports fund managers with investment strategies contributing to climate change mitigation and/or climate change adaptation. Apply now. Please submit applications for the ICFA before November 30th.
  • The International Social Finance Accelerator supports fund managers with investment strategies contributing to decent work across the value chain, adequate living standards and wellbeing, and inclusive and sustainable communities. Apply now. Please submit applications for the ISFA before January 10th.

Selected fund managers benefit from Accelerating Impact’s vibrant community of industry experts and fellow impact practitioners, expert coaching, tailored training, networking opportunities, and enhanced visibility, in addition to access to working capital.

Don’t miss your chance to join an inspiring cohort of like-minded professionals and to tap into these resources to accelerate the launch of your impact investment vehicle.

Agents of Impact

🏃 On the move

  • Hana Freymiller, formerly of West Potomac Capital, joined Climate First Bank as senior vice president and director of energy project finance.
  • Impact Europe welcomed Angela Wiebeck, formerly with Aquila Capital, as CEO, succeeding Roberta Bosurgi.
  • S2G Investments appointed Grant Leslie, previously with FGS Global, as operating partner of government and policy. 

The Week’s Podcasts

🎧 This Week in Impact

Host Brian Walsh takes up ImpactAlpha’s top stories with editor David Bank. Up this week: Forget 50 year mortgages, there are actual solutions to make homeownership affordable; the case of the missing $54 billion in climate finance; and, highlights from this week’s call on plugging the financing gap for growth businesses in Africa.

🏘️ Community Capital Live: Non-extractive lending for a regenerative food system. Host Michael Shuman spoke with Ryan Anderson of Steward, an Oregon-based community lending platform that provides loans to small and mid-sized farms and food businesses. Individual lenders can participate with as little as $100, including through Steward’s pooled fund, which offers about 6.5% on a nine-month note. Says Anderson: “We like to say it’s focused on people, the planet and the palate.” Tune in.

📯 The Criterion Institute Podcast: Church, finance and the imagination to act. Host Joy Anderson explores the transformative role churches and faith communities can play in shaping economic systems that reflect their values. Listen in.

The Week’s Calls

☎️ Agents of Impact Call: More of the right kind of capital for growth firms in Africa (video)

Tech-enabled ventures in healthcare, education, agriculture and financial services are driving economic growth and job creation in Africa. “This segment of the market offers the best, most attractive risk-adjusted returns across the capital stack,” Adesuwa Okunbo Rhodes of Lagos-based Aruwa Capital Management said on last week’s Agents of Impact Call on catalyzing capital for “growth funds” financing such “growth firms.” Fund managers from Ghana, Senegal and Nairobi also made the case for backing relatively small, local investment funds.

🔌 PluggedIn: Braiding capital to bridge climate tech’s ‘Valley of Death’ (video)

Between promising pilots and profitable is a chasm that continues to swallow even the most innovative climate hardware startups. Investors call it the “valley of death” – the stage after seed funding when capital needs surge, timelines stretch and confidence wavers. In a Plugged In conversation last week, Sherrell Dorsey was joined by Taj Eldridge of Jobs for the Future and investors Edward Jean Louis and Reginald Parker to discuss how “braided” capital and operational discipline can help founders cross that divide. 

Get in the Game

💼 Step up

  • W.K. Kellogg Foundation is seeking a public equity investment analyst in Battle Creek, Michigan for a hybrid role.
  • Schroders is hiring an impact analyst for a temporary role in London or Geneva.
  • Bank of America is looking for a sustainable investing analyst in Boston.

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