Mar. 2020 Newsletter
The Next Leg of Our Impact Journey
An Expansion and Transformation of Our Leadership
Pictured: Founder and President Teri Lovelace's stewardship transformed LOCUS from a startup to a successful, thriving enterprise.
The new year represents a culmination for us at LOCUS Impact Investing. Our launch as a startup in the summer of 2017 ushered a suite of innovative initiatives into the impact investing field. Now, we'll embark on the next phase of our journey as LOCUS' Founder and President transitions to a new role as the Community Investment Guarantee Pool's Executive Program Director and we begin a national leadership search. ... . READ MORE ON OUR BLOG
LOCUS Focus
Pictured: LOCUS Solutions Consultants Travis Green and Kipton Currier, in cooperation with Philanthropy Delaware, helped a group of foundations explore impact investing.
Foundations Explore Impact Investing
Philanthropy Delaware partnered with Kipton Currier and Travis Green of LOCUS Impact Investing to launch a community of practice for members exploring local impact investing. At a session on March 3, a dozen corporate, family, private and community foundations gathered to learn about the growing field, brainstorm strategies for deploying catalytic capital in the state, and consider models for building a local impact investing collaborative.
The Hidden Power of Guarantees
Over the last few months, we've seen a lot of positive buzz around the Community Investment Guarantee Pool (CIGP). A new article from Next City discusses how financial guarantees can be used as instruments of impact and how CIGP in particular is poised to leverage more resources in service of organizations eschewed by traditional capital sources.

We anticipate the opening of our next application round in mid-April. Check out our website for more information about the program along with our contact form for future applicants.
Enhancing Impact Through Peer Learning
This month, LOCUS staff Deb Markley, Lisa O'Mara, Travis Green and Teri Lovelace will host the third Kansas Community Philanthropy Innovators Network (CPIN) Institute, along with our partner, the Aspen Institute Community Strategies Group. CPIN is a guided peer learning experience generously funded by the Kansas Health Foundation. The participants, a cohort of KS community foundations and their local stakeholders, are making progress on their tailored economic development priorities and learning how to leverage local impact investing as a tool for community change.

The peer learning approach allows the CPIN members to learn together and from each other, and creates an intra-state network of peer resources for the future. We believe it’s a great way to explore local impact investing. If you are thinking about local impact investing, you can try out a snapshot version of one tool we used in KS, Local Investing for Impact Fundamentals, here .
Opportunity Zone Updates
The White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council released its one-year report to the Administration documenting the progress of the Opportunity Zone program. The report called for legislation designed to measure the impacts of Opportunity Zone investments and proposed recommendations to foster private and public investment in distressed communities. Download the report here.

Director of Project Development Becca Richardson recently participated in an Equitable and Clean Economy Opportunity Zone Workshop, hosted by Oakland-based micro-venture capital group Devlabs and Intentional Endowments Network at the 2020 Higher Education Climate Leadership Summit in Atlanta, Georgia. Becca joined leaders from a number of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), innovators and practitioners in the clean energy field, and Opportunity Zone (OZ) investors and experts in a roundtable-setting to co-design realistic and achievable models for accelerating community development in OZs. The Discussion focused on using OZs as a way to address climate change and resiliency issues through investments in campuses and surrounding communities. Becca looks forward to sharing ideas, resources and networking connections from the event with Virginia's five HBCUs and the Commonwealth's larger higher education community in the coming months.
News from
the Field
Where You'll Find LOCUS
Mar. 12 | Remote
Teri Lovelace will be a featured speaker on a webinar spotlighting how guarantees can de-risk innovative initiatives.

Mar. 18-20 | Wichita, KS
Deb Markley, Travis Green, Lisa O'Mara and Teri Lovelace will facilitate (private event).

Apr. 5-7 | Detroit, MI
Deb Markley, Travis Green, and Lisa O'Mara will represent LOCUS at a sponsored exhibit.

Apr. 14-16 | Pigeon Forge, TN
Deb Markley and Travis Green will attend.

May 11-13 | Atlanta, GA
Members of the LOCUS team will participate.

LOCUS Capital, Inc. is a Registered Investment Advisor Firm. Advisory services are only offered to clients or prospective clients where LOCUS Capital, Inc. and its representatives are properly licensed or exempt from licensure. LOCUS Capital, Inc. and its representatives do not furnish investment advice or services through this website. Past performance is no guarantee of future returns.