ImpactAlpha Open

Novel strategies in a fundraising drought + staking workers to a share in the AI economy

Dennis Price ¡ January 20, 2026

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

🎉 Stay ahead of the curve in 2026 with an individual or team subscription to ImpactAlpha. Learn more. 

In this week’s Open:

  • Novel strategies in a fundraising drought
  • Joseph Blasi’s plan for shared ownership of the AI economy
  • Podcasts: Criterion Institute and This Week in Impact
  • Spotlight: Superorganism’s biodiversity bet

Let’s dig in. â€“ Dennis Price

Must-reads on ImpactAlpha

  • In impact fundraising drought, novel strategies and private credit stand out and, yes, size matters. Fundraising for impact investment funds tanked last year – for the third consecutive year. Nevertheless, savvy and persistent managers are navigating the parched landscape to ride the upswing when it comes, report ImpactAlpha’s Jessica Pothering and Lucy Ngige. See how.
  • Joseph Blasi: Give workers a stake in AI’s upside through state and federal ‘permanent funds’. How can the gains of AI productivity be more fairly distributed? Rutgers University’s Joseph Blasi, a leading researcher on employee ownership for more than half a century, proposes a version of a sovereign wealth fund or funds, akin to Alaska’s Permanent Fund – fueled by data and AI rather than oil. Hear him out.
  • Sir Ronald Cohen on investing in defense, dealing with Trump and winning ‘the impact revolution’ (Q&A). When pension funds talk, private equity fund managers listen. Ronald Cohen, one of the UK’s most prominent private equity and venture capital investors, knows how that works. As institutional asset allocators make impact management and measurement a condition of investment mandates, “the private equity investor can’t say: ‘I’m not interested,'” Cohen tells ImpactAlpha’s European correspondent Danielle Rossingh in a wide-ranging interview from London. “He says, ‘Okay, we’ll measure.’” Read more.

Sponsored: JPMorganChase

How impact credit can unlock growth for small businesses in the ‘missing middle’ 

“What does it take to turn promising small businesses into engines of opportunity for communities?” ask JPMorganChase’s Diana Kolar Leach and Annie Spencer in a post on ImpactAlpha. Their answer: Impact-oriented private credit. Businesses in the “missing middle” – too big for early-stage support but not yet a fit for banks or venture capital – can use impact credit to accelerate their revenues, and in turn, create jobs, build wealth and strengthen local economies. “Impact credit offers flexible, patient capital tailored to the needs of these businesses,” write Leach and Spencer. For the fund managers who provide such impact credit, philanthropic capital can help strengthen and de-risk the impact credit ecosystem, “lowering costs, reducing risk and increasing the chances of success and capacity to support small businesses.”

Agents of Impact

🏃 On the move

  • Bridget Michalowski, previously with Arctaris Impact Investors, joined Clean Energy Ventures as investor relations manager.
  • TheSmall Foundationpromoted Liz Wilson to CEO; Conor Brosnan continues as executive chair and chief investment officer.
  • CVS Health Ventures promoted Payal Parikh to principal. 

The Week’s Podcasts

🎧 This Week in Impact

Host Brian Walsh takes up ImpactAlpha’s top stories with editor David Bank. This week’s top story: Amidst an impact fundraising drought, novel strategies and private credit stand out and, yes, size matters. David shares takeaways from ImpactAlpha’sinterview with Rutgers’ Joseph Blasi, who is proposing a “citizens’ share” in AI’s upside. And finally, a look at the impact of entertainment, specifically the Emmy-nominated film “Nonnas” from veteran producer Scott Budnick.

📯 Criterion Institute Podcast: Financing patience

Host Joy Anderson explores the parallels between funding social movements and financing market formation. Joy speaks with Katharina Samara-Wickrama and Medina Haeri about patient, long‑term investment; flexible core support instead of short‑term project grants; and a commitment to relationship‑building and collective strategy.

The Week’s Spotlight

🌱 Superorganism lets investors bet on biodiversity

Kevin Webb worked in tech and venture capital before feeling called to climate studies at Columbia University. Tom Quigley worked as a conservationist in Australia, Madagascar and the Cayman Islands before entering the startup world. The two have now found a niche investing in pre-seed and seed stage tech startups addressing the urgent issue of biodiversity preservation. “We spoke with many founders and learned that biodiversity was a compelling reason why they were doing the work, but they didn’t have VCs around their cap table giving them that specific support,” Quigley told ImpactAlpha. “Nature tech” startups raised just $10 billion between 2018 and 2024.

Tomorrow’s Call

☎️ The real returns of impact-first fund managers

Deep impact can come from unlikely bets. Fund managers able to invest in early stage, novel solutions in tough markets with fit-for-purpose capital and necessary support can deliver their investors big wins. Impact-first managers may generate market-rate returns – or even impact alpha – but their first priority is addressing the problem to be solved. On next week’s Agents of Impact Call, Open Road Impact’s Caroline Bressan, Rhia Ventures’ Erika Seth Davies, Global Partnerships’ Tara Murphy Forde, Echoing Green Signal Fund’s Daniel Tellalian, Acre Capital’s Hussein Sefian and other impact-first fund managers will explore the true costs – and returns – of impact-first investing, Wednesday, Jan. 21, at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm London. RSVP today.

Get in the Game

💼 Step up

  • BFA Global seeks a research and impact lead for a role in either India or Kenya.
  • Norfund is looking for an intern in Oslo.
  • The Flora Family Foundation is hiring a chief financial officer in Menlo Park.

🤝 Meet up

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