Retail climate investments in the Global South + Shaping the algorithm for “Good AI”

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In this week’s Open:

• Expanding climate investment opportunities in the Global South
• Podcasts: Hear from Dimitry Gershenson, Erin Davis and Urmi Sengupta
• The Call: Shaping the algorithm for “Good AI”
• Spotlight: Raven’s outcomes fund for Indigenous communities 

Let’s jump in. – Dennis Price

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Must-reads on ImpactAlpha

• How impact LPs are supporting fund managers long after the raise. For each leg of Gary Community Ventures’ local wealth building strategy, they have a public policy agenda to mobilize public capital as well. Other LPs providing post-raise portfolio support included Melinda French Gates’ Pivotal Ventures and insurance giant MassMutual. Read more.
  
• How US retail investors can find opportunities for climate action in the Global South. US climate action is in retreat. Investors don’t have to be, explains Capital for Sustainability’s Marilyn Waite in her first post as an ImpactAlpha contributing editor. The most attractive investment opportunities may be in the low- and middle- income countries that account for three-quarters of global greenhouse gas emissions. Check it out.
  
• Building regional engines for affordable housing in California. Newly formed regional agencies are “building financial engines at the regional level to unlock stalled pipelines, experiment with new housing typologies, and in partnership with new and existing housing development partners, scale solutions,” write the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority’s Andrew Fremier, Los Angeles County Affordable Housing Solutions Agency’s Ryan Johnson, and San Diego Regional Housing Finance Agency Board’s Cody Petterson in a guest post. Learn more.

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Agents of Impact

• Inclusive Insurance Investment Fund welcomed Bethuel Muthiru, formerly with Bamboo Capital Partners, as an investment associate. 
  
• S2G Ventures promoted Christopher Marshall to head of AI and technology solutions, Mason Leist to food and agriculture senior associate, and Drew Cochran to portfolio valuations and reporting director, among other promotions. 
  
• Miguel Silva was promoted to sustainable investments manager at the California pension fund CalPERS.

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The Week’s Call

🤖 (Human) agents of impact are shaping the algorithm for ‘good AI’ 

There’s a new urgency behind efforts to ensure that AI models are designed in ways that preserve agency, benefit humanity, and contribute to the public good. “There’s a very strong imperative from Big Tech to make us believe that the tech itself is the end,” said Katy Knight of the Siegel Family Endowment. “The reality is that we have the agency to choose what we adopt and what we don’t adopt.” The call brought together Knight, Chris Jurgens of Omidyar Network, Paul Fehlinger of Project Liberty Institute, and Mohamed Nanabhay of Mozilla Ventures to sketch an investment thesis around responsible and ethical AI, and kick off ImpactAlpha’s ‘Shaping the Algorithm’ beat, in partnership with Siegel Family Endowment.

• Keep reading and watch, “(Human) Agents of Impact are shaping the algorithm for ‘good AI’,” on ImpactAlpha.

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The Week’s Podcasts

🎧 This Week in Impact 

Host Brian Walsh takes up ImpactAlpha’s top stories with editor David Bank. Up this week: Highlights from this week’s Agents of Impact Call on Shaping the Algorithm for good AI; how regional housing finance agencies in California are leveraging public funding to crowd private capital into affordable housing; and the emergence of local guarantee facilities for local investors in infrastructure in Africa and Asia.

• Listen to the new episode of This Week in Impact. Get the podcast in your feed by subscribing on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube.

🦸 Agents of Impact 

Enduring Planet is helping climate startups overcome the chicken-or-egg dilemma. Dimitry Gershenson and Erin Davis join David to discuss how their working capital loans help early-stage climate startups unlock other financing.

• Tune in

👩‍🏫 Women Changing Finance: Exploring catalytic capital

Host Krisztina Tora is joined by the MacArthur Foundation’s Urmi Sengupta to discuss how the Catalytic Capital Consortium has grown to include a dozen foundations and family offices, mobilizing hundreds of millions of patient, flexible dollars to bring in even more capital for climate justice, place-based investing and small business development.

• Listen.

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The Week’s Spotlight

🪶 A fund for Canada’s Indigenous communities opens the tap of public finance 

A first-time fund from Indigenous-led Raven Group in Canada has a fresh take on the ‘pay for success’ model. Raven’s Indigenous Outcomes Fund has reached a $32.2 million second close toward a $50 million goal to fund roughly a dozen green and community health-focused projects requested and designed by Canada’s First Nations and Native tribes in the US.

• Keep reading and catch up on all of this week’s dealflow reporting.

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Get in the Game

💼 Step up

• The ImPact is looking for a communications manager in the US or UK for a remote role.
  
• Laird Norton Wetherby is hiring an impact investment analyst in Seattle. 
  
• Ceres, inc. seeks a senior manager of policy engagement for its investor network in Boston or remote.

🤝 Meet up

• Mar. 16 – 18: MO Summit (Asheville)
  
• May 13 – 14: Total Impact Summit (Philadelphia, PA)
  
• May 19-21: ReFed Food Waste Solutions Summit (Charlotte, NC)
  
• June 1 – 5: Sustainable Finance Initiative’s Impact Week (Hong Kong)

🎉 Stay ahead of the curve with an ImpactAlpha subscription. Subscribe today. 

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