Articles by James Militzer
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Thursday
June 12
2014Part of the Problem – or Part of the Solution?: EMERGE conference challenges financial service providers to raise their game in serving low-income Americans
Approximately 46.5 million Americans live in poverty, due in part to the 2008 economic crisis. But the industry that sparked the crash may be part of the solution, as financial service providers show increasing interest in the low-income market. In the first post in our Domestic Financial Innovation series, we explore the industry’s shifting attitudes toward bank and non-bank players.
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- Uncategorized
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Guest Articles
Monday
June 9
2014Mainstreaming the Movement: Toniic CEO Stephanie Cohn Rupp discusses the future of impact investing
"Eventually, I think the victory will be when everyone who is investing ... can put their capital into impact," says Toniic CEO Stephanie Cohn Rupp. But can retail investors accurately assess their investments’ social impact? Is it responsible for pensions or IRAs to offer impact options? And which investments should qualify as "impact"? In part two of our Q&A, Cohn Rupp discusses these and other questions.
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- Environment, Impact Assessment
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Interviews
Thursday
June 5
2014What Makes Toniic Tick? Part One of an Interview With Stephanie Cohn Rupp, CEO of the Impact Investor Network
Investing for social impact can be a risky business, and it helps if impact investors can leverage the knowledge of like-minded peers. Toniic, a global network of impact investors, aims to facilitate those interactions, bringing social entrepreneurs and investors together for the benefit of both. NextBillion Financial Innovation recently spoke with Toniic CEO Stephanie Cohn Rupp to discuss its approach, and the evolution of the sector.
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- Impact Assessment, Social Enterprise
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Guest Articles
Friday
May 30
2014Pay For Success: Can Social Impact Bonds Provide the Fabled “Win-Win-Win”?
Goldman Sachs recently made headlines by investing in a Massachusetts nonprofit that tries to keep young men out of jail. The investment was part of the largest social impact bond or "pay-for-success" effort to date in the U.S. Rick Edwards of Third Sector Capital Partners discusses the benefits and risks of the approach in part two of our Impact Investing Insights series.
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- Impact Assessment
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Saturday
May 10
2014Weekly Roundup – 5/10/14: Every investment is an “impact investment”
Every investment has a social/environmental impact on some level - a fact that more and more investors are taking into account. We discuss Stanford University’s decision to divest its $18.7 billion endowment of stock in coal-mining companies, and a recent J.P. Morgan/GIIN survey of top impact investors, in this roundup.
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- Education, Impact Assessment
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Guest Articles
Wednesday
May 7
2014A Small Drop in a Large Bucket: The World Economic Forum’s Abigail Noble, on why impact investing needs to go mainstream
In 2012, less than $40 billion of capital had been committed to impact investments - out of tens of trillions in global capital. The World Economic Forum’s Mainstreaming Impact Investing initiative wants to help change that. In part 1 of our Impact Investing Insights series, we spoke with the initiative’s leader, Abigail Noble, about how to bring “$40 billion” a bit closer to “tens of trillions.”
- Categories
- Environment, Impact Assessment, Investing
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Guest Articles
Thursday
May 1
2014More Questions than Answers: Impact investors struggle to present their sector to the general public
What qualifies as “impact” investing – and how exactly should non-financial impacts be measured? Those may seem like pretty basic questions. Yet at the recent Sustainatopia Impact Conference, clear answers were in short supply, as a young sector works toward a consensus on the best way to present itself to mainstream investors.
- Categories
- Environment, Impact Assessment
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Guest Articles
Thursday
April 24
2014Impact Investing at a Crossroads: Sustainatopia Impact Conference highlights excitement and concerns about the future of the sector
Despite the excitement surrounding impact investing, it’s clear that the sector is nowhere near big enough to make a dent in the problems the world is facing. As the industry strives to get to the next level, participants in Sustainatopia’s 2014 Impact Conference shared their hopes and insights (and aired a few frustrations).
- Categories
- Environment, Impact Assessment, Investing