SIF Lasting Impact through Systems Grant Program

The Sorenson Impact Foundation has launched the Lasting Impact Through Systems Change grant program to provide access to capital, entrepreneur support, and jobs for underserved communities across the US in the heat of a global pandemic and concurrent economic, labor, and health crises.

Donor Name: Sorenson Impact Foundation

State: All States

County: All Counties

Type of Grant: Grant

Deadline: 06/17/2022

Size of the Grant: $100,000 to $250,000

Details:

The Grant program will continue the theme for systems change by focusing on fundamental socio-economic gaps, barriers, and challenges in society and supporting solutions that are addressed or catalyzed by impact investing.

Its goal is to support the development of an impact investing ecosystem that harmonizes financial returns, social impact returns, and equitable capital distribution. Specific areas of focus are listed below, including example projects for illustration. Please note that example projects are directional only. As a foundation that values scalable innovation, they are eager to see proposals for systems level, game-changing new solutions.

SIF is seeking proposals for projects addressing the following areas:

The Wealth gap – Millions of people in their society have fewer opportunities to generate wealth during their lifetime. Wealth inequality is escalating tensions between the “haves’ and “have-nots”. The ever-accelerating gap and economic divide is clear: while the top 10% of income earners in the United States receive almost 30% of the nation’s income, the wealthiest 10% own 76% of the country’s wealth, this means that less than a quarter of the nation’s wealth is left for the bottom 90% of the American population. If the wealth divide continues to accelerate, the economic conditions will have an increasingly adverse impact on the economy at large because the majority of U.S. households will no longer have enough wealth to reach the American middle class or higher. The foundation seeks to support innovative programs, policy initiatives, or ground-breaking research in which market solutions and impact investing could play a catalytic role in reducing the wealth gap. Example proposals could include:
- Solutions that involve socio-economic research, public policy, or new economic models to help remove barriers or increase opportunities for:
  - more inclusive wealth building for the lower and middle class who have been left behind;
  - improved access to life-long wealth building opportunities that systemically remove barriers to wealth creation;
  - owning wealth-building assets like home ownership for existing and new generations that find home ownership out of reach.
- Solutions to build and reinvest wealth locally — through innovations like worker ownership, cooperative ownership, minority-focused investment, community-empowered development.
Displaced Populations – Millions of people around the world have been displaced through brutal, and repressive regimes causing untold human suffering and trauma. The number of forcibly displaced people around the world reached an all-time high of 84 million people in 2021. The displaced population could top 300 million by the end of the decade if current trends continue. While political solutions are sought to eliminate the global conflicts, the grim reality is that many people will need to resettle and find pathways to become self-reliant. Example proposals could include:
- Innovative programing, policy initiatives, or ground-breaking research in which impact investing could play a catalytic role in enabling displaced populations to become selfreliant.
Inclusive Investment – Over 90% of investment capital is allocated to men while less than 3% of venture capital in the US is allocated to Black, Latinx, or Indigenous founders combined. Over 50% of global venture capital is allocated to three US states (MA, NY, and CA) and, in emerging markets around the world, the vast majority of capital is allocated to companies led by expats (typically from the United States, Canada, or Europe). Entrepreneurial capability and creativity is evenly distributed, but access to capital is limited. The foundation seeks to support innovative programs, policy initiatives, or ground-breaking research in which impact investing could play a catalytic role to more equitably distribute investment capital across regions and demographics in an effort to unlock the power of entrepreneurship for social impact in underserved populations.
Example proposals could include:
- Research on gender, racial, regional, and demographic representation, capital structures deployed, and fund returns in impact vs traditional funds, with an emphasis on the development and dissemination of best practices in investment approach
- Projects designed to familiarize professional (and non-professional) investors with investment funds that are substantially owned and governed by women or BIPOC to support more equitable distribution of funds and investments to businesses.
Unlocking impact measurement at scale: There has been significant progress in the evolution of ESG metrics and reporting standards. With the emergence of the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), the EU Sustainability Reporting Standards, the recent SEC announcement to enhance and standardize climate-related disclosures, it is clear that the field is entering a new era of sustainability reporting. But there is a lack of understanding, clarity and progress towards standardization for thematic frameworks, leading to significant redundancy and opacity around best practices. To professionalize and scale up the thematic impact space, there must be clear alignment in what impacts to measure and how to measure them. The foundation seeks to support tools and approaches that focus on transparency, standardization, and adoption that will lead to increased efficiency in thematic impact measurement. Example proposals could include:
- Initiatives to identify, develop and implement best practices in thematic impact metric identification, measurement, analysis and reporting.
- Solutions that seek to harmonize the institutional, sectoral and practitioner silos in which we currently operate in reporting and measuring to better increase economies of scale and create clear, concise pathways to standardization.
- Solutions to help reduce the reporting burden on entrepreneurs, companies and funds to better capture the economic, social, and environmental impacts of investments to improve their effectiveness, transparency, and accountability.