Giving Compass' Take:

• Impact America Fund is investing in companies that are empowering communities that have been traditionally overlooked by venture capitalists. 

• How can donors help address equity and diversity issues within the impact investing world? Who is currently doing this work well? 

• Read about this impact investing approach to support diversity and economic inclusion. 

Creating great places to work that positively improve the lives of workers can be done in any sector of the economy. Impact America Fund is impact investing in companies that are finding ways to do just that in communities often overlooked or left behind by traditional venture capitalists.

 

Our portfolio companies are led by entrepreneurs whose commitment to the communities they serve are genuine and comes from having lived or worked within them. They have a nuanced understanding of the problems their product or service solves, stemming from a deep appreciation of the needs, desires, and behaviors of their customers and the cultural norms of the communities they reside in. If you look at the demographics of our portfolio company founders, you’ll find that a majority are people of color or women.

More importantly, the successes of the companies we have invested in are contributing to the story of how impact investing can help shift the paradigms of race, economics and social change in America. As research continues to confirm that impact investments are consistently meeting or exceeding investor goals and individual foundations get serious about allotting capital for impact investing, the onus of measurement becomes more important.

However, we didn’t invest in them because of their race or gender; we invested in them because they had valuable lived experience — and that is the standard that has consistently translated into success for us.

It’s a future that’s bad for all of us — and it’s what we’re actively working to disrupt by investing in founders who use technology to better the lives of society’s “have nots,” instead of using it to exploit them in service to the already comfortable.

Read the full article about impact investing by Kesha Cash at B The Change.