Let’s Talk IMPACT: Candide Group’s 2023 Impact Report is Here

Foreword from our Director of Impact

I’m proud to introduce our second annual public impact report and affirm that — yes, impact measurement is still messy. It’s still imperfect. And it’s still one of my favorite challenges to experiment with in the impact investing sector. 

In surveying over 80 companies and funds two years in a row, representing approximately 70% of those we’ve supported over the past 11 years, we affirmed our suspicions that reporting doesn’t have to be mandated and comprehensive in order to be deeply valuable. Empowering respondents to answer prompts most relevant to them ensures that time is not wasted on extraneous data points. Instead, we focus on what really matters: data to inform how we, as intermediaries, can help our investees advance their goals and increase their unique impact in the world. 

I want to ground this report in the reality that 2023 was a year of both tremendous growth and macro-level challenges. Some major themes we saw from our portfolio analysis included:

• Positive trends around cooperative ownership structures. In aggregate, 30% of our investees had some form of democratic workplace and/or worker ownership. What’s more is that numerous investees expressed interest in learning more about what it would take to implement more equitable ownership, and a desire to access resources that could support this journey. 

• The detrimental impact of “DEI attacks” on diverse founders and their communities. The 2023 market experienced a drop in investor funding as attention to racial equity generally wavered, compounded by explicit lawsuits and distraction tactics around the concept of investing in racial equity. We, as Candide Group, from day one, have been committed to investing in entrepreneurs and fund managers who are mostly closely positioned to understand and support communities where social and environmental remedies are necessary. The outcome of this thesis has been that we’ve directed capital to majority women and BIPOC leaders. Nothing will deter us from this work. (Read our Co-Founding Partner Morgan’s Simon aptly titled Forbes.com piece, “Yes, You Can Still Invest in Diverse Entrepreneurs: Here’s How.”)

• The value of grassroots input and creative financing vehicles to meet the needs of communities. Candide has historically focused on building custom portfolios for families and foundations to serve social justice. In our nearly eleven years of operation, we’ve also learned that specific financing vehicles allow us to go deeper into impact themes, where we’ve been able to concretely execute our values around accountability. Today, we are proud to have two credit vehicles — Olamina and Afterglow Climate Justice Fund — demonstrating the deep impact possible with the guidance of Community Advisory Boards.

With these three trends, it warrants repeating: The people closest to the problems are often the people closest to the solutions. But they’re too often far from the resources to enact said solutions. With impact data and a commitment to progress, our goal is to help bridge that gap more and more each day. 

Thank you for joining us on this journey. 

-Jasmine Rashid, Director of Impact

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View our list of past specific recommendations for the last 12 months. For more information about Candide, please see our Form ADV, Part 2A.

Disclosure: The information contained in this document is intended for educational and information purposes only and should not be considered investment tax or legal advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any particular security. Please consult with your tax and legal advisors regarding your particular circumstances.Certain statements contained herein may constitute projections, forecasts, and other forward-looking statements, which do not reflect actual results and are based primarily upon a hypothetical set of assumptions applied to certain historical financial information. Certain information has been provided by third-party sources, and, although believed to be reliable, it has not been independently verified, and its accuracy or completeness cannot be guaranteed.Any opinions, projections, forecasts, and forward-looking statements presented herein are valid as of the date of this document and are subject to change.The investment discussed herein have been included based on the following methodology: all investments Candide Group has facilitated on behalf of our clients since the publishing of our last all-network newsletter, and investments with recent public news events. For a complete list of all investments, please click the “list of past specific recommendations for the last 12 months” link above. The views and opinions are those of the author as of the date of publication and are subject to change at any time. This material represents an assessment of the market environment at a specific point in time and is not intended to be a forecast of future events, or a guarantee of future results. Candide Group is under no obligation to update this information after the date of this publication.Past performance is not indicative of future results; no representation is being made that any investment will or is likely to achieve profits or losses like those achieved in the past, or that significant losses will be avoided. An investor should consider the investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses of any financial product carefully before investing. Investing involves various risks, including loss of principal. Charts and graphs provided herein are for illustrative purposes only. For more information about Candide, please see our Form ADV, Part 2A.