Pittsburgh
PA 15260
Funding organizations have forged different approaches to achieve greater social impact for their dollars. Some are adopting longer term, capacity building strategies to insure that grantees have the bandwidth necessary to tackle complex social problems. These typically involve the capitalization and business models of nonprofits. Other funders have expanded their own resources with investments and strategies along the continuum of impact investing instruments.
In Pittsburgh, these same topics are generating discussion and early action. Accordingly, the Philanthropy Forum at GSPIA, Grantmakers of Western PA (GWP), The Forbes Funds and Greater Pittsburgh Nonprofit Partnership (GPNP) will collaborate in presenting a two-part series aimed at distilling two approaches to investing for greater impact.
The first session will explore the topic of impact investing, how it operates and lessons learned to date. It will present some of the traditional tools of impact investing, and some of the newer methods being used in the social innovation space. The second session will consider deeper capitalization strategies. Each will seek to help funders, their nonprofit partners and those in the financial sector determine where the local synergies may exist to expand the resources available for meeting critical missions.
Join us for the first panel in this series:
Unpacking Impact Investing - What It Is and How It Can Fuel Social Innovation
Setting the Stage: Kim Dempsey, Deputy Director of the Social Investment Practice at The Kresge Foundation, will discuss the spectrum of instruments, the data on returns and progress toward measurement standards.
What's Old is New: Christine Looney, Senior Program Investment Officer, The Ford Foundation, will address old school and new school approaches to organizational strength and social change.
The Local View: Local respondents, including Matt Zieger, Executive in Residence, Innovation, The Forbes Funds, will discuss how to plan for resilience, impact investing, capital flows, and community empowerment as well as the government's role in fostering social innovation through impact investing.
Aimed principally at foundations, those in the nonprofit sector interested in expanding their revenue repertoire, public sector funders, donors and those in related financial sector activities, this first panel will serve as a vehicle to open a Pittsburgh conversation on the social impact tools available.
This panel will:
- Enhance understanding of impact investing in its various forms
- Illustrate case study examples of projects that have been both successful and those that did not reach their targets
- Separate hype from results and understand measurement of outcomes
- Gain a better understanding of the sectors where it is most appropriate
- Gauge interest in areas where the methods are already at work locally
- Identify potential sectors for implementation locally
The panel will be followed by time for audience Q&A.