This Week in ESG and Impact Investing

This has been a year of biblical proportions, with almost too many historic events to count. Among everyone 2020 has brought our way, one of the most positive has been Kamala Harris, the first female and person of color to become the Vice President of the USA.  Harris epitomizes the best of a new, more diverse country–mixed race, born of immigrants, and a self-made success. From King to Obama to Harris we have come a long way, but as consequential as they are, they represent only a fragment of the black and brown American experience.  Black and brown entrepreneurs have always been an economic force in America, in 2020 creating 4.7 million jobs and $700 billion in revenue. At the same time, they're too often the most impacted by significant events. For example, in 2020, we saw a 41% decline in black businesses, as a direct result of COVID-19 ( Creative Investment Research ). Although corporates pledged over $40 billion to support BLM, the majority of funds will be slowly alloc...

The COVID crisis reveals what’s actually important: family, food and community . It also shows what’s not important: material items and money worship . Globalization, too, a specific form of money worship, proved unable to support the domestic production of basic but critical supplies, like masks, in a time of crisis. Another thing revealed by this crisis is the true cost of racism. It shows how racism supports mediocrity.  The crisis reveals the moral and spiritual bankruptcy embedded in some of the “religious” claims by white racists in the US. These appear to be materialistic and greed-based misinterpretations. This is a self-centered version of “faith” that somehow justifies not wearing a mask in the middle of a pandemic. In addition to being irrational, any logical interpretation of this behavior reveals the selfishness driving this behavior. The common thread is veneration of white privilege, including the right to impose a deadly pandemic on Black people, simply because som...

On October 6, 2020, Jerome H. Powell, Chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System reviewed America’s economic status amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Mr. Powell began his analysis at the beginning of 2020, before the pandemic hit. He then touched on the recession and the nascent recovery that must ensue. Mr. Powell closed with a look at what lies ahead on the road to normalcy. The speech was full of numbers and statistics that, to the casual observer wouldn’t fully explain what this means for the country. But, I can say with a fair amount of certainty that Chair Powell is wary of what's to come for our nation, which, before the COVID-19 pandemic was experiencing new highs in job creation and the stock market. Nevertheless, Chair Powell remains optimistic that the country will fully recover and return to what it once was. In terms of the pre-covid economy, Chair Powell stated that:  “The U.S. economy was in its 128th month of expansion—the longest in our recorded hist...

  JPMorgan Chase announced a $30 billion “commitment” to address U.S. wealth inequality in Black and Latino communities. The pledge consists of actions, over five years, designed to increase the number of loans, investments, donations and grants the bank makes. The focus of the effort is housing, where the bank says it will lend an additional $14 billion dollars, finance the construction of 100,000 affordable rental units and issue $12 billion in mortgages. These efforts are meant to be supplemental, that is, the bank says these are loans and investments it would not otherwise make. Of course, problems with racial inequality in the U.S. have been magnified after the May 25 death of George Floyd, instigated by former members of the Minneapolis, MN police department. The incident sparked weeks of protests across the globe. In addition, the COVID pandemic exposed gaps in health care access. The Black community has experienced far higher Covid-19 mortality than in the overall populatio...

As a new virtual knowledge-exchange, Prox is dedicated to "connecting wisdom with those who seek it." The platform allows people to search a community of subject matter experts and book time with them instantly. In a September, 2020 TechCrunch article, Prox CEO Michael Mathieu stated that the goal of the platform "is to create an entire suite of 'back office' tools for experts and influencers...the company is starting out by offering an easy way to host one-on-one video sessions with knowledge seekers. People who are influencers on social media and on YouTube, they don't control that customer," Mathieu said. "It's a YouTube customer, so if you're going to monetize, it's through a slice of YouTube ad revenue." The TechCrunch article goes on to state that "Prox is designed to help..experts make money more directly from anyone who wants to connect with them, and to understand that audience. (CEO) Mathieu suggested that the...

Bits & Pretzels (B&P) is the German equivalent of the South by Southwest  (SXSW) startup event. B&P is Europe’s biggest startup/founders festival. The event will be held from September 29 to October 2, 2020. Speakers include: Eric Schmidt, Former CEO Google, Co-founder Schmidt Futures Dirk Nowitzki, Basketball superstar Arianna Huffington, Founder & CEO, Thrive Global  Former speakers include Barack Obama, Richard Branson, Jessica Alba and many other world leaders in the global startup ecosystem. Bits invented Table Captain Networking for startups to connect face-to-face with experts in small networking sessions. Each session is 40 minutes long for up to 6 attendees and are perfectly timed and sized for startups to ask questions. We will host a Networking session at the event on September 30th. 

September 24, 2020 In a discussion led by William Michael Cunningham, Mr. Tarrell Gamble, Ms. Wendy Garcia, and Dr. Ruchi Dana spoke about their experience with diversity within the investment management business sector.  Starting with women in the workforce, Dr. Dana noted research that shows companies with more women are also more capital efficient.  Dr. Dana also noted that gender diversity is an important starting point when considering balanced executive boards. She stated that female consumers make up $20 trillion of consumer spending. This is larger than the GDP of both India and China combined. Therefore, Dr. Dana notes, it is important to have women on corporate boards who understand this perspective. She finished with noting that "In a society where firms are mainly white male owned, there exist many systemic barriers. When looking to hire investment consultants, firms must also be conscious of the language they use to refer to their employees...