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In this episode of Capital for Good we speak with three inspiring leaders in women’s health, Erika Seth Davies, Jade Kearney, and Flory Wilson, each pioneering advances in reproductive and maternal health, and each using business, investment, engagement, and advocacy as levers for social change.
Davies is the CEO of Rhia Ventures, a nonprofit that advances reproductive and maternal health equity by leveraging capital to focus on the needs, experiences, and perspectives of historically marginalized people in decision making. Rhia ventures activities include venture capital investing (via RH Capital), ecosystem building, corporate engagement and advocacy, and narrative change.
Wilson is the founder and CEO of Reproductive & Maternal Health Compass (RMH) Compass, a nonprofit focused on the role employers play in access to reproductive and maternal health, and on providing companies with the tools, resources, support, and recognition necessary to offer best in class RMH benefits for all workers.
Kearney is the co-founder and CEO of She Matters, a digital health platform designed to improve maternal morbidity through cultural competency and technology. Focused in particular on improving health outcomes for Black women, and on the epidemic of Black maternal morbidity, She Matters is a B2B company that offers health providers a culturally competent certification program tailored to the specific nuances and challenges facing Black women in the US health care system.
Over the course of this conversation, we touch on the personal and professional experiences that have informed each of these leaders’ work in health equity and access. We also explore how current headwinds and retrenchment — on reproductive and maternal health, on racial equity and inclusion, and on corporate activism — motivate them and have shaped their innovative business models.
“If anyone says entrepreneurship is easy,” Kearney says, “point them in my direction. Social entrepreneurship is sometimes gut wrenching because you’re so close to the problem. But change is also soul feeding because you’re so close to the problem.”
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Mentioned in this Episode
Rhia Ventures Reproductive and Maternal Health Compass She Matters -
In this episode of Capital for Good we speak with Lise Strickler ’86 and Mark Gallogly ’86, the co-founders of Three Cairns Group, a mission driven investment and philanthropic firm focused on the climate crisis.
In the years since Columbia Business School, where they met in 1986, Mark has worked in investing, philanthropy, and public policy; as co-founder of Centerbridge Partners, an investment firm with over $30 billion of assets under management; and before at The Blackstone Group. Mark’s work in public service has included two stints under President Obama, and most recently at the US State Department as an Expert Senior Advisor to Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry. Lise has extensive experience in the climate advocacy sector and has spent the last 20 years working with local, state, and national organizations to advance public policy and build momentum for scalable solutions to the world’s climate crisis, including as a board member of the Environmental Defense Fund and co-chair of their 501(c)4 political advocacy partner, EDF Action; on the leadership council of the Yale School of the Environment; and on the advisory boards of Environmental Advocates NY, the Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy, Columbia University’s Climate School, the Tamer Center for Social Enterprise at Columbia Business School, and the Adirondack Trail Improvement Society.
In this wide-ranging conversation, we cover a number of the challenges — and promising solutions — to the climate crisis. We begin with their respective “climate journeys,” including for both formative childhood experiences in nature and the outdoors. Lise credits her parents for “passing on the values of hard work, conservation, and leaving the world better than you found it,” and recalls how the environmental activism of the 1970s, including the passage of important legislation like the Clean Air and Water Acts, shaped her understanding of environmental issues and the potential to address them.
We discuss the genesis of the Three Cairns Group, and some of its first major initiatives, each focused, in different ways, on developing ideas and climate solutions that are potentially scalable, and then working with partners across sectors and across the world to implement. For example, Three Cairns has recently launched Allied Climate Partners (ACP), a platform that has aggregated capital from philanthropy, governments, development finance institutions and the private sector to support early-stage climate projects and businesses in emerging markets, including in Southeast Asia, the Caribbean and Central America, Africa, and India. We also explore why Mark and Lise believe that universities, as centers of learning, “creators of new knowledge that advance civilization,” and places that produce the leaders for tomorrow are natural partners for their work on climate. We touch on various efforts they are involved in at Columbia and Yale.
Finally, Lise and Mark remind us that, while the challenges of the climate crisis are many, there are number of breakthroughs that motivate them to keep moving forward: some technological, like MethaneSat, a new $100 million methane tracking satellite, or the falling costs of renewables; some policy related, like the passage of the federal Inflation Reduction Act, the Infrastructure and Jobs Act, the CHIPS and Science Act, that are driving trillions of dollars into climate, or more locally the promise of congestion pricing in places like New York City that will reduce emissions and elevate the importance of public transportation as a climate and equity issue. Lise and Mark note that communicating these gains, and framing climate challenges as ones we have solutions to – and agency in – is critical to the tackling the crisis, particularly for young people “who want things to be better, and want to make them better.”
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Mentioned in this Episode
Three Cairns Group
Allied Climate Partners
Methane Sat
The Environmental Defense Fund
Columbia University
Yale University
Inflation Reduction Act
Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act
CHIPS and Science Act
New York Congestion Pricing
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In this episode of Capital for Good we speak with Shaun Donovan, one of the country’s most important leaders — and lifelong advocates — for housing, economic development, and shared prosperity. Donovan has worked at the highest levels of government — as Secretary of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development and Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Obama and as Commissioner of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development in New York City — overseeing large scale public-private partnerships. Today he approaches that work from Enterprise, where he leads the nation’s only nonprofit that brings together in one place housing solutions, capital, and community development.
We begin with some of Donovan’s formative personal and professional experiences that motivated his lifelong commitment to housing. Growing up in New York City during a time of crises, with high levels of street homelessness and neighborhoods across the city severely challenged, Donovan was drawn to work at community-based organizations focused on homelessness, rebuilding communities, and financing community revitalization.
We discuss how these experiences would inform his years in government, and his understanding of the role of the public sector. “I am a deep believer in the power of government and the need for a strong government role in the service of the public good,” Donovan says. He notes that, in particular, government can make foundational investments in things like infrastructure or basic scientific research that lay the groundwork for much broader economic prosperity, and can set the “rules of the road,” for commercial market players. He also underscores the importance of cross sector partnerships: Government can scale innovations tested by the nonprofit and private sectors or shape policy that responds to community-based movement building.
Donovan’s forty-year commitment to housing is rooted in the sector’s “unique” role in people’s lives — where people live and their quality of housing — affects larger opportunities and well-being: schooling, health, safety, and employment. Housing has also become the most expensive thing in most people’s lives: more than half of US renters spend over 30 percent of income on rent, closer to 50 percent for lower income Americans. We discuss how today’s affordability crisis has led to record levels of street homelessness, overcrowding, evictions, and instability in communities across the United States — the worst Donovan has seen in his lifetime. The high cost of housing also prevents individuals and families from moving to higher paying jobs; limited economic mobility in turn exacerbates economic and political segregation and polarization.
Despite these challenges, Donovan is encouraged by important developments at the national, state, and local level. We discuss what he calls the “New New Deal:” the trillions of dollars the federal government has deployed to infrastructure and climate (via the Inflation Reduction Act), political momentum at the state level to increase the supply of affordable housing, and a wellspring of housing innovation in communities across the US. At Enterprise, Donovan and colleagues take on all of these issues, with a particular focus on racial equity and building resilience and upward mobility. Founded forty years ago, Enterprise today invests approximately $10 billion a year into communities ($64 billion cumulatively to build or preserve 950,000 homes), owns and manages 13,000 affordable homes, and is the country’s largest housing policy and advocacy organization. All of these activities involve partnerships. For example, Enterprise has recently joined forces with LISC, Habitat for Humanity, the United Way, and Rewiring America to apply for $9.5 billion from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund to work with 156 communities across the country to decarbonize affordable housing, invest in resilience, and ensure an equitable low carbon transition. Enterprise also oversees a variety of innovation challenges to support effective housing solutions developed by community-based organizations across the United States. “We have solutions, we know what works,” Donovan says. “I think this is the moment, potentially, when we come together… to build a national movement to make housing a critical part of how we support families in this country.”
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Mentioned in this Episode
Enterprise The Inflation Reduction Act Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund Power Forward -
In this episode of Capital for Good we speak with Dr. Fei-Fei Li, the Sequoia Professor of Computer Science at Stanford and the Denning Co-Director of Stanford’s Human Centered AI-Institute. Dr. Li has been called the godmother of artificial intelligence and has emerged as one of the country’s leading scientists — and humanists. She is also the author of the new book, The Worlds I See: Curiosity, Exploration, and Discovery at the Dawn of AI.
We begin by discussing how and why Li employs a “double helix” structure in her book to tell two interlacing stories: the evolution of a new field of science and her own coming of age as a scientist. Together, they form an homage to the intellectual foundations of her work, and to the teachers, mentors, and family members whose sacrifices made her work possible. We explore how the very act of writing the book serves to introduce an underrepresented voice — that of a woman, an immigrant, a person of color — into the world of artificial intelligence and science more broadly. Li believes strongly that “progress and discovery come from every corner,” and throughout her career has worked towards “lifting all walks of life.”
In explaining just what she means by “human centered AI,” Li explains that there is “nothing artificial about artificial intelligence.” As a “tool made by and for people,” she argues AI should be used to make people’s lives work better. Li describes any number of extraordinary and beneficial applications of AI, including those in neuroscience, the social and political sciences, business, education, climate change, and health care, from research drug discovery to diagnosis, treatment, and delivery. We also touch on some of the major risks of AI. While Li believes it is important to examine the longer term and potentially existential threats of AI — the current and popular pre-occupation with sentience and machine overlords – she is more concerned with the technology’s urgent (and potentially catastrophic) social risks: significant biases in data and algorithms, issues of privacy, the problems of misinformation and disinformation, and the profound and uneven economic disruptions that the technology can bring about. “AI can grow the global pie of productivity,” Li says, “but there is a difference between increased productivity and shared prosperity.”
Li also warns of severe levels of underinvestment by the public sector in AI. She has worked closely with the state of California, the federal government, and the UN to encourage more of a “moonshot” mentality when it comes to resources for blue sky innovation, and for the development of governance and guardrails essential for public safety and trust.
Li concludes by encouraging others to follow their own North Stars. “My North Star hasn’t changed, it is still AI, but it is the science with an expanded aperture: the greater North Star of doing good that is human centered.”
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Mentioned in this Episode
The Worlds I See: Curiosity, Exploration, and Discovery at the Dawn of AI Stanford University Human Centered AI Institute AI4All -
In this episode of Capital for Good we speak with Suzanne Nossel, the chief executive officer of PEN America, and one of the country’s most prominent experts and voices on free speech, free expression, and human rights. Nossel has held leadership roles in government, the nonprofit and private sectors, and is the author of the award-winning book Dare to Speak: Defending Free Speech for All.
We begin with some of Nossel’s formative personal and professional experiences that shaped her passion for human rights, including participating as a young person in the movement to free Soviet Jews in the 1980s, and her years after college in South Africa during the country’s early transition from Apartheid to democracy. Both influenced what would become a throughline throughout her career — “an impulse to advocate for people who take great risks, who assert themselves, who challenge authority,” whether that was leading important initiatives at the State Department under President Obama, at the UN under President Clinton, or at civil society organizations like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and now PEN America.
Nossel walks us through a kind of “free speech and free expression” 101. She explains that while much of the important conversation about free speech centers on the First Amendment, and therefore on protections against government infringement on speech, more broadly free speech is also the foundational right for all other rights in a free and democratic society, the “catalyst for a range of social goods.” Nossel reminds us that the open exchange of ideas allows for deliberation, persuasion, debate, accountability, the ability to make better policies, choose better leaders, and advance scientific progress artistic creativity; freedom of expression is “an underwriter of so many other movements, the ability to advocate for… women's rights, climate justice, racial justice.” She worries about a rising generation becoming alienated from the principle of free speech, seeing free speech at odds with commitments to diversity, inclusion, and pluralism — when in fact they are mutually supportive and reinforcing.
We discuss many of the ways Nossel and her PEN America colleagues aim to serve as “guarantors of free speech and open discourse” through work to “celebrate and defend freedom of expression worldwide.” Some of this takes the form of enabling and amplifying lesser heard voices like Dreamers or incarcerated writers; some through awards, festivals, and public programming celebrating a “big tent” of writers and voices that in turn supports PEN’s free expression and advocacy work, including the defense of persecuted writers around the world, litigation, i.e., the recent federal lawsuit in Escambia County, Florida challenging book bans, or warnings on the dangers of education gag orders. For years, PEN America has also worked on issues of campus free speech, a topic we explore in light of the recent protests and crises of university leadership. Nossel hopes that today’s campus convulsions have brought about a recognition that universities need to put in place deliberate, intentional training and inculcation of a culture of free speech, open discourse, and academic freedom to support the diversity of experience, opinion, and perspective that makes universities “catalysts for understanding and growth.”
We also touch on the large and “messy” issues of online speech, the ways it can be weaponized, the challenges of disinformation, of businesses built on algorithms that prioritize inflammatory content — that are not governed as public entities or liable for most posted speech, and of the lag in appropriate regulation. “The best we can do is experiment,” Nossel says. To date, that experimentation has included important new EU regulations, and efforts from the tech companies themselves to improve content moderation. Nossel herself sits on the Meta oversight board, a group that works to apply human rights principles to adjudicate complex content moderation quandaries and dilemmas.
While deeply concerned about speech issues — particularly the problems of misinformation in an election year (in the United States and around the world), Nossel is also hopeful there is increased recognition, on the political left and right “that each has a stake in speech.” “Speech really should be an issue that sits above politics, and for a long time it was,” she says. “My hope is that we can go back to that when it comes to the nature of our discourse.”
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Subscribe to Capital for Good on Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Drop us a line at [email protected].
Mentioned in this Episode
“In Win for Free Expression, Jude Rule Lawsuit Challenging Escambia County, FL Book Banks can Move Forward,” (PEN America, 2024) “A Free-Speech Fix for our Divided Campuses,”(Suzanne Nossel, Wall Street Journal, 2023) Dare to Speak: Defending Free Speech for All, (Suzanne Nossel, Dey Street Books, 2020) PEN America -
In this episode of Capital for Good we speak with Luis Miranda, one of New York, and the country’s, most dynamic cross-sector leaders, with more than four decades of experience in government, business, politics and advocacy, community development, and the arts. Miranda is the founding partner of the MirRam Group, founding president of the Hispanic Federation, and board chair of the Latino Victory Fund, the Public Theater, and the Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance. In the words of his son Lin-Manuel, Miranda is relentless.
We begin with Miranda’s childhood and formative years in Vega Alta, a small town in Puerto Rico where he was born and raised before leaving for New York to pursue a PhD in clinical psychology at NYU. Although he left Puerto Rico as a very young man, the place has remained central to his identity and family — and, as beautifully told in the award-winning HBO documentary Siempre, Luis, a place he returns to regularly, including to lead much of the rebuilding effort after hurricanes Irma and Maria.
Once settled in New York, Miranda discovered that work as a clinical psychologist didn’t suit him, but the city “fit like a glove.” Inspired by his parents, who were deeply engaged in public service, Miranda became a community activist, first via nonprofit organizations, then in government when he “came to understand the role that politics can play in changing lives, making communities better.” Miranda would go on to serve in three Mayoral administrations — Koch, Dinkins and Giuliani — and became increasingly involved in local, state, and national politics, helping to elect officials to the New York City Council, the New York State Assembly, and all of New York’s recent representatives in the US Senate: Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton, Charles Schumer, and Kirsten Gillibrand. Miranda also chairs Latino Victory, focused on building power in the Latino community by electing more Latinos to office.
We end with a discussion of the arts — and the ways in which Miranda’s commitment to the arts, politics, community activism, and inclusion all come together. His many recent and large-scale arts projects include bringing Hamilton to Puerto Rico as part of the hurricane recovery effort, leading the restoration of the United Palace theater in Washington Heights, and chairing the board of The Public Theater, where he is leading its Fund for Free Theater campaign. “The arts feed the soul; they bring people together,” Miranda says. “We have to ensure they are accessible.”
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Mentioned in this episode
Siempre, Luis Relentless (Luis Miranda) Latino Victory The Public Theater -
In this episode of Capital for Good we speak with Sonal Shah, the CEO of the Texas Tribune, and one of the country’s most talented and truly cross-sector leaders. Shah is a serial social entrepreneur, and intrapreneur, having founded several important institutions including the White House Office of Social Innovation under President Obama, the Asian American Foundation, and Georgetown’s Beeck Center for Social Impact and Innovation. She began her career in international development at the US Department of the Treasury and went on to lead some of the first sustainability and “impact” initiatives at Goldman Sachs and Google. Today, Shah is focused on a new model of nonprofit journalism, given how vital local news, reporting, and information are for community, accountability, and democracy.
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In this episode of Capital for Good we speak with David Leonhardt, senior writer at the New York Times where he writes its flagship newsletter, “The Morning,” and author of the important new book, Ours Was the Shining Future: The Story of the American Dream. At the Times Leonhardt has been Washington bureau chief, op-ed columnist, staff writer for the Magazine, and founding editor of “The Upshot.” Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 2011, Leonhardt is one of the country’s most insightful thinkers and analysts.
We begin the conversation with some of Leonhardt’s own origin story: his family’s experience with the American Dream, including that of his grandfather who fled the antisemitic persecution of wartime Europe for the United States, married, and started life in the US in 1940 on the cusp of a long period of prosperity and opportunity — one, too, of terrible discrimination, racism, sexism — but a society that, for most Americans, would deliver on the promise of the American Dream “that life gets better over time.” “I feel a real gratitude for this country, not by any means blind to its great faults,” Leonhardt says, and expresses deep concern that our collective sense of optimism about the future has faded for so many as progress — on earnings, health and wellbeing, life expectancy – has slowed “to a crawl for most Americans,” while income and wealth inequality have soared.
We discuss Leonhardt’s belief that capitalism “works better than any alternative we’ve found… but only a certain type of capitalism”: one that acknowledges that the market is a good and strong force “with consistent shortcomings” that, unchecked by government interventions, can produce significant inequality, or global challenges like climate change. Leonhardt describes how a positive “democratic capitalism” thrived in the post war period for a number of reasons, among them the rise of organized labor that significantly reduced inequality and increased material living standards for lower- and middle-income Americans, and a culture of business leadership championed by executives who believed they were “trustees of the common welfare,” stewards of a kind of high wage, low inequality capitalism that shared the goal with government and labor of creating “a more prosperous America to lead the world.” Leonhardt notes that this era also saw significant government investment in public goods — basic science and technology research (that was then taken up by the private sector), physical infrastructure (i.e., roads and railways), social infrastructure (i.e., education) — with the foresight and political will to use “some of today’s resources to make life better tomorrow.” Today, Leonhardt laments, we have reverted to a kind of “rough and tumble” capitalism with massive declines in union membership and power, a more self-interested corporate culture, and a stagnation that comes from decades of underinvestment.
We end our discussion on a note of optimism, “not that we are going to fix our problems,” Leonhardt says, “but that we can fix our problems.” He believes that the decline of the American Dream over the past half century can be reversed, and that the dream can restored by a strong and diverse grassroots political movement dedicated “to protecting that dream” and improving living standards of most Americans. Leonhardt cites any number of unlikely successes in our history of social progress — on the political left and labor – that have been achieved through grassroots organizing and coalition building. He is confident, or at least hopeful, “the future can be different from the past.”
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Mentioned in this Episode
Ours Was the Shining Future: The Story of the American Dream Longer Commutes, Shorter Lives: The Costs of Not Investing in America, (The New York Times, 2023) The Hard Truth About Immigration, (The Atlantic, 2023) -
In this episode of Capital for Good we speak with Nick Turner, the president and director of the Vera Institute of Justice, where he has spearheaded the organization’s work over the last decade to end overcriminalization and mass incarceration in the United States. Turner is one of the nation’s most visible and important leaders on criminal legal reform – and on a broader set of equity and justice issues.
We begin with some of the formative experiences that would shape Turner’s lifelong commitment to justice, fairness, and understanding “how things work — or don’t work — for people.” The son of Black and Filipina parents, Turner grew up in Washington, DC, attended a Quaker school with a deep service ethos — and would return to Washington after college to work with court-involved, homeless, and disconnected young people at Sasha Bruce Youthwork, a youth services organization. After Sasha Bruce, Turner says he could never “unsee” the glaring underinvestment in that community and in the potential of its young people — and would go on to pursue a career focused on the structural changes necessary to address these inequities.
We discuss the complex issue of mass incarceration; the politics of fear that drive excessive policing, charging, and sentencing; the criminalization of poverty; and the deeply racial disparities and underpinnings of a legal and carceral system that would grow 700 percent between 1972 and 2009, when 2.5 million people in the United States were behind bars and half of all American families have had an immediate family member incarcerated. Turner reminds us, and the data show, that incarceration in the United States is often counterproductive. The severe disruptions and trauma that come with time behind bars can lead to a vicious cycle of instability, poverty, crime, and reincarceration. Although we have made significant progress — the number of people incarcerated is down 25 percent from 2009 — we find ourselves again in a moment when fears about crime and public safety have dampened support for important and evidenced-based criminal justice reforms.
In addition to some of the better known and proven reforms (i.e., those related to bail and sentencing), Turner describes alternatives to conventional policing and incarceration — responding to mental health, housing, or substance use crises with trained specialists instead of police, community violence intervention programs — that reduce crime, deliver safety and accountability, and help shrink the jail and prison populations. We also touch on important rehabilitative efforts to improve conditions behind bars (such as education and restorative housing pilots) and ways the private sector — through changes to hiring and housing policies — can improve opportunities for people to be successful once they are released.
Turner notes that despite the polarizing politics of public safety, most Americans are now “smarter” about the harmful costs of mass incarceration — younger generations particularly so — and support change. “It is possible to have public safety and justice,” he says. “People want safety, they also want solutions.”
Thanks for listening!
Subscribe to Capital for Good on Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Drop us a line at [email protected].
Mentioned in this episode
Ending Mass Incarceration, (Vera Institute of Justice) The Prison Paradox: More Incarceration Will Not Make Us Safer, (Vera Institute of Justice) Nearly Half of Americans Have Had a Family Member Jailed, Imprisoned, (Cornell University, 2019) -
In this episode of Capital for Good we speak with Andrea Jung, the president and CEO of Grameen America, the fastest growing microfinance organization in the United States. Jung is the former chairman and CEO of Avon Products Inc, where she was the longest serving female CEO in the Fortune 500, and a stalwart champion of women’s economic empowerment in the United States and across the globe. Jung has been widely recognized as one of the most influential women in business, and in forging public-private partnerships that end violence against women, support women’s health, and vastly expand economic inclusion. Since 2014, under Jung’s leadership, Grameen America has expanded to serve more than 179,000 women in 25 cities across the United States, with plans to continue to increase the organization’s impact over the next decade.
Over the course of this conversation, Jung explains how a multi-decade career at Avon, where she began in a mid-level marketing role and would serve as the first woman CEO from 1999 through 2012 (and chairman from 2001 to 2012), was inspired and shaped by the company’s longstanding mission to empower women via a pathway to economic independence and equal opportunity. Jung explains that by giving Avon “ladies,” the company’s direct to consumer sales force, personal earning power, it allows them to change the lives of their families and communities. Founded in 1886 — more than thirty years before women’s suffrage in the United States — Avon’s commitment to women’s economic empowerment has been the foundational DNA of the company, linking its purpose and commercial success. As CEO, Jung was responsible for significant global growth, expanding economic earnings (approximately $3 billion) and opportunities for over six million women in more than 100 countries.
Jung explains how this experience in women’s economic empowerment at Avon naturally led her to Grameen America. Founded by Muhammad Yunus, the economist and Nobel Laureate who pioneered microlending in Bangladesh, Grameen America sought to extend this model to the United States. Today, Grameen America’s 179,000 members, primarily Black and Latina women with 99.8 percent repayment rates on $3.5 billion in loans to date, have proven the case. Through a combination of new partnerships, technological innovations and a greater visibility of the success of its financial inclusion model — to new borrowers, policy makers, and donors and lenders — Grameen America is poised for “breakout” growth and scale.
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Subscribe to Capital for Good on Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Drop us a line at [email protected].
Mentioned in this Episode
Impact Report (Grameen America) MDRC Evaluation of Grameen America Microfinance Model (Grameen America, March 2022) “Women are Limitless: Unlocking the Financial Power of Future Leaders,” (Grameen America Annual Report, 2022) -
We find ourselves at a moment of great challenge – and opportunity. In this season of Capital for Good, we'll explore how the world's political, economic, and climate crises have compelled us to reimagine how leaders across the private, nonprofit, and public sectors champion social and environmental change in ways that truly advance shared prosperity and a sustainable future.
This season host Georgia Levenson Keohane will speak with a dynamic line-up of leaders, including business and nonprofit leader Andrea Jung, the former CEO of Avon and current president and CEO of Grameen America; Nick Turner, the president of the Vera Institute of Justice; Pulitzer prize winner, New York Times writer, and author David Leonhardt; Sonal Shah, the CEO of the Texas Tribune; political strategist and arts and civic leader Luis Miranda; corporate and sustainability pioneer Audrey Choi; Shaun Donovan, government leader and current Enterprise Community Partners CEO; and Suzanne Nossel, CEO of PEN America, the leading human rights and free expression organization; and more! -
In this episode of Capital for Good we speak with Scott Rechler, the chairman and CEO of RXR, a leading real estate owner, investor, operator, and developer committed to building socially, economically, and environmentally responsible communities.
In this conversation, Rechler draws on his extensive business and civic leadership experience to assess the state of New York’s recovery from the pandemic. In addition to running one of the region’s largest real estate development and infrastructure firms, he also serves or has served on the boards of the Port Authority, the MTA, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Regional Plan Association, and played various roles in helping to rebuild lower Manhattan in the wake of the September 11 attacks. These different vantage points inform Rechler’s view that we have entered a “great recalibration.” Our recovery, he notes, has occurred faster than we would have expected in the depths of the pandemic: “the most important barometer of the health of our city is the talent, the people,” he says, “and we’ve seen an incredible rebound.” At the same time, he cautions that the public, private, and nonprofit sectors still need to adjust to the significant structural changes that have occurred in how and where people live and work — and what this means for our commercial corridors, residential communities, the infrastructure that connects and supports them, and “sustainable, equitable growth” going forward.
We also discuss what responsible business looks like in the context of real estate. Rechler explains that his firm’s motto, “doing good and doing well means doing better,” is about building more sustainable, socially responsible, and equitable communities. In addition to a focus on clean energy and decarbonization goals, RXR forges partnerships with local government, civic, religious, and labor organizations, and small businesses as part of every business plan and project.
We end with a discussion of New York’s future. Gone are the days of “winners and losers” and “city versus suburb,” Rechler says. New York’s status as a “superstar city,” depends on a healthy and symbiotic relationship with a “superstar region.”
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Subscribe to Capital for Good on Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Drop us a line at [email protected].Mentioned in this Episode
RXR ESG Report “Signs of Progress: NYC’s Economic Recovery,” (Partnership for New York City, 2022) Recalibrate Reality With Scott Rechler -
In this episode of Capital for Good we speak with Liz Luckett, the managing partner of The Social Entrepreneurs’ Fund, and a co-founder of Maycomb Capital. A pioneer impact investor who has blazed the trail, and set a very high bar, for the billions of dollars and many new entrants to the field, Luckett shows us how to build a world with greater access, opportunity, and shared prosperity.
In this conversation, Luckett describes how a career as an entrepreneur — building and growing several businesses around predictive modeling and analytics — and a deep commitment to solving problems, particularly for the underserved, led to the creation of The Social Entrepreneurs’ Fund (TSEF). Now on its third fund, TSEF has shown that investing in companies that put the needs of low- to moderate-income Americans first is more than a moral imperative — it’s a compelling business opportunity. Today, TSEF invests in fintech, health care, and the future of work, and Luckett tells us about several compelling enterprises: fintech companies focused on financial health and well-being that make consumer finance more transparent, easy to use, and responsible; and health care companies that improve health outcomes for individuals, families, and communities, while also reducing costs for overburdened health systems. Cushion, for example, has automated negotiation of overdraft fees — a $9 billion business for large banks — and is now working on a product that would help people smooth and manage their bills to avoid future fees; Petal uses historical payment information to extend credit, upending the traditional credit score model; Finhabits helps build wealth through retirement savings, small business 401k, and access to health insurance. Targeting health, and the social determinants of health, Findhelp is an online platform that enables care coordinators to connect individuals with the social services they need; Clínicas del Azúcar, one of TSEF’s first investments, has reinvented low-cost diabetes care in Mexico, and will soon be moving into US markets. Luckett also speaks about why venture is the right asset class for impact, as its illiquidity and long-time horizon allows entrepreneurs to hone their models over time — particularly when it comes to keeping costs down and access high, preserving the “humanity” of products and services while bringing them to scale.
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Subscribe to Capital for Good on Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Drop us a line at [email protected].Mentioned in this Episode
The Social Entrepreneurs Fund TSEF on the Future of Consumer Finance “Small Data for Big Impact,” Liz Luckett (Stanford Social Innovation Review, 2018) Cushion Petal Finhabits Findhelp Clínicas del Azúcar -
In this episode of Capital for Good, we speak with Samantha Tweedy, the inaugural president of the Black Economic Alliance Foundation, the nation’s leading organization harnessing the collective expertise and influence of Black business leaders and allies to build generational wealth and economic prosperity for the Black community. Tweedy has spent her career building and leading transformative racial and economic justice initiatives at the intersection of the public, private, and philanthropic sectors, showing how equitable and inclusive growth creates a more prosperous country, and future, for all Americans.
In this conversation, Tweedy begins with personal history, explaining how her commitment to issues of equity and justice — for using the opportunities afforded her to create opportunities for others — comes via “osmosis,” as she follows in the footsteps of grandparent trailblazers in the fight for civil rights and racial and economic justice. Tweedy describes how her early career in educational equity and access, as a litigator and school leader, gave her a deeper understanding of structural and multigenerational disparities. At the Robin Hood Foundation, she saw many uncomfortable but important truths in the data: the persistent black and white wealth gap in communities Robin Hood served and the fact that, despite increases in overall philanthropy, only 10 percent went to organizations led by people of color trying to solve problems of poverty racial and economic disparity in the first place. Accordingly, Tweedy launched Robin Hood’s nearly $20 million Power Fund to invest in and elevate nonprofit leaders of color focused on increasing mobility from poverty and addressing specifically, through the expertise and understanding of proximity and lived experience, the interplay of racial and economic injustice through their work. In many ways, this effort connects directly to the Foundation Tweedy is building and leading at the Black Economic Alliance — an organization committed to driving progress for the Black community, with a particular focus on improving economic outcomes in work, wages, and wealth. Only a few months into her new role, Tweedy is directing a range of policy, advocacy, and business and government engagement initiatives. She walks us through a few of these, including the new Center for Black Entrepreneurship, a partnership with Spelman and Morehouse Colleges, and the Black Economic Alliance Entrepreneurs Fund.
Thanks for listening!
Subscribe to Capital for Good on Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Drop us a line at [email protected].Mentioned in this Episode
“Racial Equity and Philanthropy: Disparities in Funding for Leaders of Color Leave Impact on the Table,” Cheryl Dorsey, Jeff Bradach, and Peter Kim (The Bridgespan Group and Echoing Green Report, 2020) The Power Fund Black Economic Alliance Black Economic Alliance Foundation Center for Black Entrepreneurship Black Economic Alliance Entrepreneurs Fund -
In this episode of Capital for Good, we speak with Stephen Grimaldi, the executive director of New York Common Pantry, and John MacDonald and Scott Crawford, the chief marketing and chief merchandising officers of FreshDirect, about the extraordinary partnership these two organizations forged in the height of the pandemic.
In this conversation, we learn how New York Common Pantry — founded in 1980 to reduce hunger, and promote dignity, health and self-sufficiency — and FreshDirect — a pioneer of online grocery — came together in a moment of crisis. In the early days of the pandemic, both organizations faced a surge in demand. In the case of FreshDirect, this came from the millions of New Yorkers who looked to online shopping and delivery for nourishment. For NYCP, food insecurity doubled early on in the pandemic, just when the Pantry’s volunteer base could no longer pack or serve meals. Building off an initial relationship between the organizations’ leaders, FreshDirect provided support in numerous forms, including sourcing, packing, and delivering food, marketing, events, and perhaps most “transformational,” according to Grimaldi: an easy way for grocery shoppers to donate directly to Common Pantry. With New York Common Pantry donations listed as a product SKU on the FreshDirect website, the online grocer’s customers have contributed more than $4 million dollars, which equates to more than 3 million meals, since the start of the pandemic. According to MacDonald and Crawford, the collaboration has been a “shining star” for the company internally. They also believe that by making community engagement easy for their customers, the partnership has reinforced loyalty to a brand and company with deep stakeholder commitment. We end with a discussion of the partnership going forward — and as a potential model for others.
Thanks for listening!
Subscribe to Capital for Good on Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Drop us a line at [email protected].Mentioned in this Episode
New York Common Pantry-FreshDirect Partnership featured on CBS News, (2020) New York Common Pantry as FreshDirect product SKU “FreshDirect and NY Common Pantry Reimagine the Pantry Model with Launch of New Mobile Pantry,” (Bronx Times, 2021) -
In this episode of Capital for Good we speak with Donnel Baird ’13, one of the country’s most innovative entrepreneurs leading our transition to a low carbon and more inclusive economy. Baird is the founder and CEO of BlocPower, a clean tech startup based in New York City that develops portfolios of clean energy retrofit opportunities in underserved communities and connects those opportunities to investors seeking social, environmental, and financial returns.
In this conversation, we discuss the early days of BlocPower and Baird’s decision to seek financial backing from mainstream investors who believe squarely in the commercial model of greening urban real estate, rather than from so-called impact investors. Baird notes that although his investors, who now include Microsoft’s Climate Innovation Fund, Goldman Sachs, Prosperity Capital, Apple, Andressen Horowitz, Kapor Capital, and others, appreciate the social and environmental benefits that BlocPower creates — decarbonizing buildings in low-income communities reduces greenhouse gas emissions, improve health, and creates jobs — it’s the commercial power of the model that will bring it to scale. Baird says “There are 125 million buildings in the United States; they account for 30 percent of our greenhouse gas emissions. If you can figure out how to decarbonize a building and move a building entirely off fossil fuels, then you can do all of the buildings on a city block, and if you can decarbonize all of the buildings on one city block, then you can decarbonize all the buildings in a city.” BlocPower is partnering with Ithaca, New York, the first city in the world to commit to green all its buildings by 2030, to decarbonize its full real estate stock. BlocPower has several other cities in the pipeline and ultimately intends to open source its approach; to become a “decarbonization platform” to supply the data, workforce, project finance, and model for others to follow suit.
Thanks for listening!
Subscribe to Capital for Good on Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Drop us a line at [email protected].Mentioned in this Episode
“Making Buildings Green May Take a Chunk Out of Climate Change,” Soujourner Elleby (Bloomberg, 2022) BlocPower Is Turning Every Home Into the Equivalent of a Tesla, Ainsley Harris (Fast Company, 2022) Green Banks Target the Funding Gap for New York Energy Startups, Lee Harris (Financial Times, 2021) This US City Just Voted to Decarbonize Every Single Building, Tik Rook (Washington Post, 2021) Brooklyn-based Clean Tech Startup Bringing Rooftop WiFi to 100,000 Bronx Residents, Sharon Udasin (The Hill, 2021) Block by Block, He Aims to Fight Injustice and Save the Planet, Sarah Kaplan (Washington Post, 2021) -
In this episode of Capital for Good, we speak with Jonathan Soros, chief executive officer of JS Capital Management LLC and co‐founder of Athletes Unlimited, a new model of professional sports and a reimagination of the way business can — and should — show up in the world.
In this wide-ranging conversation, Soros explains how his lifelong commitment to public policy and public interest work — with experience in government, politics, the nonprofit sector, and finance — has led to the launch of Athletes Unlimited, a reimagination of a professional sports company and a new approach to social enterprise. We discuss the state of impact investing and the advances of innovations like public benefit corporations and the limits to scale and impact that motivated Soros to experiment with “mission equity,” the novel capital structure at the heart of Athletes Unlimited. We learn about the rapid growth of this new company —premised on the business case for investing in female athletes and sports — and showcasing a range of responsible and player-led business practices, such as athlete participation in governance and ownership, an enlightened approach to employee health and well-being, racial equity, climate change, and the championing of athlete and fan civic engagement and leadership off the field. We also explore how this business model could be expanded to any number of companies and sectors.
Thanks for listening!
Subscribe to Capital for Good on Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Drop us a line at [email protected].
Mentioned in this Episode
· “Unpacking the Impact in Impact Investing,” Paul Brest and Kelly Born (Stanford Social Innovation Review, 2013)
· “The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase its Profits,” Milton Friedman (New York Times Magazine, 1970)
· “The Friedman Doctrine Revisited,” Jonathan Soros (Democracy, 2020)
· B Lab, B Corps, and Public Benefit Corporations
· Public Benefit Corporation Report (Athletes Unlimited, 2022)
· “Women’s Basketball Players Get a New Lifeline, Close to Home,” Tamryn Spruill (New York Times, 2022)
· “Athletes Unlimited Is Bringing Women Athletes – and Couples – Together,” Aimee Crawford (Sports Illustrated, 2022)
· “Athletes Unlimited Set to Operate First Carbon-neutral Pro Sports Leagues in the US Via Massive New Deal,” Meredith Cash (Business Insider, 2021)
· “What if Pro Sports Leagues Were Controlled by Their Players,” Louisa Thomas (The New Yorker, 2021)
· “A New Way to Scale Social Enterprise,” Jonathan Soros (Harvard Business Review, 2021)
· “New Pro Sports Venture Puts Women’s Sports in the Players’ Hands,” Talya Minsberg (New York Times, 2020) -
In this episode of Capital for Good we speak with Kathryn Wylde, one of New York and the country’s preeminent leaders when it comes to robust, cross sector partnerships. As president and CEO of the Partnership for New York City, New York’s leading business organization, Wylde has been a key liaison between the city’s public and private sectors in the COVID-19 pandemic and recovery.
In this wide-ranging conversation, we begin with Wylde’s early career in community and economic development and revitalization in Brooklyn. We learn about the first days of the Partnership for New York City, founded in 1981 by David Rockefeller, as an effort to enlist the business community to help rebuild neighborhoods across New York. Wylde, who has lived and worked through numerous crises in the city’s history, notes that some of the challenges of the pandemic recall the 1970s fiscal crisis — in that in both eras, crises accelerated significant secular trends already under way. In the 1970s, it was a tumultuous shift from manufacturing to a service based economy; in the last two years, we have seen a rapid acceleration in our transition to a technology-based and digital economy. Wylde explains that because the economic impacts of the pandemic, particularly job loss, have been highly concentrated in industries like tourism and hospitality, retail, restaurants, or other small businesses, we will need to ensure that New Yorkers have the digital economy skills demanded by today’s job market. “If we’re going to stay a global center of talent, which is what we have to do in order to keep headquarters, companies and jobs and business here, we’re going to have to upskill our workforce, and that’s a big investment, it’s a top priority,” she tells us. We also discuss other areas of public-private collaboration, including health, education, transportation, and public safety. Wylde ends with a positive and hopeful outlook on the city: “I’m very enthusiastic about the future of New York,” she says.
Thanks for listening!
Subscribe to Capital for Good on Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Drop us a line at [email protected].Mentioned in this Episode
Office of the New York City Mayor, Rebuild, Renew, Reinvent: a Blueprint for New York City’s Economic Recovery (2022) Partnership for New York City, Return to Office Survey Results (2022) Partnership for New York City, Signs of Progress: NYC’s Economic Recovery (2022) Partnership for New York City, A Call for Action and Collaboration (2020) Partnership for New York City, Survey: COVID-19 Impact (2020) -
In this episode of Capital for Good we speak with Valerie Rockefeller, one of the country’s most innovative leaders in the fight against climate change and in our transition to a low carbon economy. Rockefeller chairs numerous organizations including Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, and BankFWD, which have pioneered ways to channel philanthropy and the capital markets towards a more inclusive and sustainable future.
In this conversation, we discuss some of the philanthropic legacies of John D. Rockefeller, and how, and five, six and seven generations later, members of the Rockefeller family are stewarding and directing resources towards strengthening peace, democratic practices, and sustainable development in the United States and around the world.
Rockefeller describes her childhood in West Virginia, where, although not yet a fully formed environmentalist, she saw firsthand the pollution and health impacts of coal and coal mining. Today, she has helped lead the Rockefeller Brothers Fund move to align investing the $1.6 billion assets under management in the foundation with its grant making strategy. Over time, this has involved a process of divesting from fossil fuels and proactively investing in climate strategies while financially outperforming benchmarks by 35 percent. These returns, and a blueprint for process, have allowed other foundations, university endowments, and mainstream investors to follow suit. “The best way to grow a movement is to . . . walk the walk: to do it well, and then share the information about what you’re doing,” Rockefeller says. In 2020, she co-founded BankFWD to address the fact that, despite global concerns about the harm and risks of climate change, large banks still finance fossil fuels. Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors has responded to the growing demand for impact and sustainable investing guidance with various donor resources and commitments on the environment, and the diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility movement.
Thanks for listening!
Subscribe to Capital for Good on Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Drop us a line at [email protected].Mentioned in this Episode
Rockefeller Brothers Fund “Investing in our Mission: A Five Year Case Study of Fossil Fuel Divestment at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund” (Rockefeller Brothers Fund, 2020) Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors “The Year Ahead: Impact Investing and Philanthropy in 2022,” (Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, 2022) BankFWD “Three Rockefellers Say Banks Must Stop Financing Fossil Fuels,” (New York Times, 2020) -
In this episode of Capital for Good, we speak with Governor Deval Patrick, one of the country’s most talented and inspiring leaders, who has blazed many trails across and between the public, nonprofit and private sectors.
In this conversation, we explore some of the through lines in a career that has included successful chapters in civil rights law and activism, policy and politics, and entrepreneurship and investing. We discuss Governor Patrick’s decision, after two terms as Governor of Massachusetts, to turn his “social impact” lens to the private sector by launching the first impact investing fund — Bain Capital Double Impact — of a global alternative investment firm. Governor Patrick walks us through BCDI’s investment thesis and approach, which is focused on health and wellness, sustainability and education, and workforce development. Early investments included Penn Foster, an affordable education, workforce preparation, and skills development company that achieved strong financial and impact returns through an active partnership with BCDI. “If you can demonstrate that you don’t have to trade return for impact, it’s a whole new game,” Governor Patrick says.
We also discuss the growth of the impact investing field, and more broadly increased corporate engagement on issues of equity, justice, and democracy — efforts that Governor Patrick believes mirror the groundswell in community building efforts that he is involved in at the grassroots level. “I see these two as linked,” he says. “This is about everyone taking responsibility for their own civic and political community.” We talk about our shared fortunes coming out of the pandemic, and whether our increased attention to issues of inequity, racial injustice, income, and wealth inequality can put us on a better path forward. “I think there is every opportunity to emerge better,” he says.
Thanks for listening!
Subscribe to Capital for Good on Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Drop us a line at [email protected].Mentioned in this Episode
Bain Capital Double Impact Bain Capital Double Impact, “Our Blueprints: Strong Foundations Build Lasting Companies” in Year in Review, (May 2021) Penn Foster Social Finance TogetherFund American Bridge 21stCentury’s Bridge Together Initiative Harvard Kennedy School Center for Public Leadership - もっと表示する
