Transform Finance Investor Network Webinar Recordings

We explored recently with Activest the intersection of racial justice and municipal bond finance, looking specifically at how to marshal progressive capital to incentivize and fund policy reforms at the municipal level. In this follow-on webinar, we will explore further how investors can engage with municipal bond finance from a social justice perspective. HIP Investor explains how they use impact metrics can form a basis for further accountability and impact management for the expected results of muni bonds. After which Neighborly will show how local investors can use municipal bonds to fund and support various improvements in local governments and nonprofits, spurring more civic engagement as well as recapitalizing communities. [These "podcasts" are the direct audio recordings of TFIN Webinars. As the original format was a video webinar, please excuse any brief technical difficulties and note that presenters may refer to slides. To watch the TFIN webinar recordings with their corresponding slide decks, please visit http://transformfinance.org/investor-resources/]

Home cooks – largely immigrants and at-home parents from communities of color – are generally cut off from the food industry, or exploited by it. Tech platforms can offer an alternative entry point. With this webinar we explore the topic of platform cooperativism, or the shared ownership of tech platforms so far dominated by VC investors, by looking at Josephine, a food and labor justice organization that empowers home cooks to sell meals to their neighbors and communities. [These "podcasts" are the direct audio recordings of TFIN Webinars. As the original format was a video webinar, please excuse any brief technical difficulties and note that presenters may refer to slides. To watch the TFIN webinar recordings with their corresponding slide decks, please visit http://transformfinance.org/investor-resources/.]

Municipal bonds are largely overlooked as a high impact investment strategy. Yet there can be no doubt of the interplay between the way US cities are financed and the social justice outcomes that get driven. As a $3.7 trillion market, it is hardly one that ought to be overlooked, in particular in light of the precarious state of municipal finance for many cities. Activest is a new project looking at marshalling progressive capital to incentivize and fund policy reforms at the municipal level. Founders, Ryan Bowers and Micah Gilmer, spoke about the group's insight into how cities' social policies and practices are predictive of financial risk and social outcomes. [These "podcasts" are the direct audio recordings of TFIN Webinars. As the original format was a video webinar, please excuse any brief technical difficulties and note that presenters may refer to slides. To watch the TFIN webinar recordings with their corresponding slide decks, please visit http://transformfinance.org/investor-resources/.]

After Apartheid officially ended in South Africa, economic justice, especially along racial lines, remained a major issue. Shared Interest identified the use of loan guarantees as a way of facilitating the provision of loans to previously excluded segments of the population. Donna Katzin and Casey Cline joined us to speak about the use and the structuring of loan guarantees and shed some light on the specific context of Southern Africa, highlighting how guarantees can be a powerful tool in other regions as well. [These "podcasts" are the direct audio recordings of TFIN Webinars. As the original format was a video webinar, please excuse any brief technical difficulties and note that presenters may refer to slides. To watch the TFIN webinar recordings with their corresponding slide decks, please visit http://transformfinance.org/investor-resources/.]

The mismatch between traditional investment structures and what works for many impactful enterprises is fairly clear by now, as Aner Ben Ami documented in his TF blog post last year. This webinar dives deeper into the LP reasons to favor structured exits with a presentation by Aner Ben Ami of Pi Investments. [These "podcasts" are the direct audio recordings of TFIN Webinars. As the original format was a video webinar, please excuse any brief technical difficulties and note that presenters may refer to slides. To watch the TFIN webinar recordings with their corresponding slide decks, please visit http://transformfinance.org/investor-resources/.]

Among the factors that has held back the growth and proliferation of worker ownership stands out the lack of available financing structures. Dan Fireside, Equal Exchange's Capital Coordinator and a veteran of the industry, guided us through models of outside financing for coops that include outside non-voting shares, worker voting shares, and a combination of debt and retained earnings. With that context, Blake Jones, the celebrated founder of Namaste Solar, presented the company's current private placement of preferred stock to grow this tremendously successful worker-owned coop without losing its commitment to worker ownership and governance .  [These "podcasts" are the direct audio recordings of TFIN Webinars. As the original format was a video webinar, please excuse any brief technical difficulties and note that presenters may refer to slides. To watch the TFIN webinar recordings with their corresponding slide decks, please visit http://transformfinance.org/investor-resources/.]

What are share buybacks and why are they inconsistent with an impact portfolio? And most relevantly - what can asset owners do to counter the public equity trend toward share buybacks? Last year Larry Fink issued a strong call against share buybacks for institutional investors. We reviewed the issue and some potential engagement strategies for our community. The webinar was led by Eli Staub, Deputy Director for Research at the SEIU, who has thought about the relationship between share buybacks and inequality more than pretty much anyone else. If you are interested in joining a nascent initiative around share buybacks, please send an email to info@transformfinance.org. [These "podcasts" are the direct audio recordings of TFIN Webinars. As the original format was a video webinar, please excuse any brief technical difficulties and note that presenters may refer to slides. To watch the TFIN webinar recordings with their corresponding slide decks, please visit http://transformfinance.org/investor-resources/.]

How can one ensure a focus on mission for an impact fund? How about tying fund manager compensation to impact metrics? We looked at this issue through the lens of news media companies, which have historically dealt with the tension between mission and market. But what about the incentives to the investors? An innovator in this area is TFIN member Media Development Investment Fund (MDIF), an impact fund that finances independent media companies around the world. Harlan Mandel (CEO) and Evan Tachovsky (Impact Officer) discussed how MDIF embedded social impact performance in the equity fund's design and how the framework was adapted from MDIF's general portfolio impact assessment strategy. [These "podcasts" are the direct audio recordings of TFIN Webinars. As the original format was a video webinar, please excuse any brief technical difficulties and note that presenters may refer to slides. To watch the TFIN webinar recordings with their corresponding slide decks, please visit http://transformfinance.org/investor-resources/.]

Will the creation of minimum wage jobs with no benefits really help U.S. workers out of a cycle of poverty? In this webinar we reviewed the work that brought together Transform Finance, TFIN founding member Pi Investments, and HCAP Partners, a $90+ million fund focused on job creation. We also reviewed the broader efforts in the job quality standards arena that Transform Finance is involved in as well as other sector-wide initiatives. For background information on this topic you may want to read Morgan Simon's SSIR piece on managing versus measuring impact: http://www.ssireview.org/blog/entry/managing_vs_measuring_impact_investmen [These "podcasts" are the direct audio recordings of TFIN Webinars. As the original format was a video webinar, please excuse any brief technical difficulties and note that presenters may refer to slides. To watch the TFIN webinar recordings with their corresponding slide decks, please visit http://transformfinance.org/investor-resources/.]