Mar 14: 11:45 - 1:00

Location: Four Square Ballroom

Lunch Keynote: How to Evaluate Your Investment Advisor and How to Choose Your Investment Advisor

Of the 40+ ways an individual or organization can catalyze the resources to achieve their mission or values, there is no question that your relationship with your investment advisor is the most critical relationship, as it relates to governance, investment beliefs, and decision-based attribution evaluation. The following session explores three case studies (AJL Charitable Foundation and Kenneth King Foundation) in their journeys to evaluate their existing investment advisor, make the decision to leave that investment advisor, and their next steps (whether it's do-it-yourself or find the next investment advisor). Then we’ll cover what they are doing to upgrade their governance, improve their evaluation, develop investment beliefs, and make the decision to (or not to) align all of the resources for impact.

Speakers:

Kristi Petrie, President, The AJL Charitable Foundation

Janice Fritsch, President, Kenneth King Foundation

Nicole Bagley, Vice President, Arca Foundation, Vice President, Sapelo Foundation, and President, The Brenn Foundation

Dr. Stephanie Gripne, (Moderator) Founder and CEO, Impact Finance Center, CO Impact Days and Impact Investing Institute

Mar 14: 8:00-8:45

Location: Four Square Ballroom

Keynote Panel: Program-Related Investments - Taking that First Step

Program related investments are one of 40+ ways private foundations can activate their portfolio for mission. Taking that first step is key to taking that next step. The following session will feature a conversation with Janice Fritsch of the Kenneth King Foundation and Ben Bynum of the Colorado Health Foundation.  

Speakers

Kristi Petrie, President, The AJL Charitable Foundation

Ben Bynum, Portfolio Director of Program Related Investments, The Colorado Health Foundation

Janice Fritsch, President, Kenneth King Foundation

Cindy Willard, (Moderator) Founder, Full Potential Philanthropy, Senior Advisor for Impact Finance Center

Mar 13: 11:45-1:00

Location: Four Square Ballroom

Lunch Keynote: Main Street 2.0

Let’s reimagine what is possible by creating a Main Street 2.0 that combines the best of what we had with Main Street relationship banking over 100 years ago with the benefits of Wall Street’s technology and risk products. What if we could invest with our mission and values, leveraging all of our resources from philanthropic to investment capital? What if access to capital was available to every nonprofit, small business, startup, cooperative, or fund? This session will share a vision of consumer and business solutions (from an alternative payday lending solution, 0% student loan, nonprofit grant advance program, impact cash flow management, community public equity, community note, direct investing model, and guarantee model).

Speaker(s):

Dr. Stephanie Gripne, Founder and CEO, Impact Finance Center, CO Impact Days and Impact Investing Institute

Brendan Martin, Founder and President, The Working World

Marie Peters, Lead Main Street Officer, Colorado Lending Source

Wendy Turman, Chief Financial Officer, MCE Social Capital

Brin Enterkin, Executive Director, Watson Institute

Mar 13: 8:00 - 8:45

Location: Four Square Ballroom

Opening Remarks Keynote: Edgar Villanueva - Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides and Restore Balance

What if we could use wealth to heal rather than cause further harm? What if money was spent trying out concepts that shatter current structures and systems that have turned much of the world into one vast market? This is the core argument explored by author and nationally-recognized philanthropy expert Edgar Villanueva in his new book Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides and Restore Balance. Using his own personal experiences as a Native American grant-maker and foundation executive (along with field data and dozens of funder interviews), Villanueva reveals the racial and colonialist dynamics at play in philanthropy and finance, including banks, investment funds, and aid organizations.

Speaker:

Dr. Stephanie Gripne, (Opening Remarks) Founder and CEO, Impact Finance Center & CO Impact Days

Banks Benitez, Co-Founder and CEO at Uncharted

Edgar Villanueva, Vice President of Programs and Advocacy, Schott Foundation for Public Education

Mar 12: 11:45-1:00

Location: Four Square Ballroom

Lunch Keynote: If Angels Invest in Unicorns, Do Heroes Invest in Racehorses, and What About the Champions and Catalysts?

Venture Capitalists love to talk about “unicorns”, where a giant financial return is possible. But that myopic focus has created an investment culture that limits how much investment and philanthropic capital actually funnels into our communities and some of society’s most promising innovations. In this keynote session, Teresa Ish (The Walton Family Foundation) and Dr. Stephanie Gripne (Impact Finance Center, CO Impact Days, and Impact Investing Institute), join forces to look beyond the “unicorns.” Together, they will lead our audience through a theoretical case study of a sustainable fisheries investment to demonstrate how different alignments of capital and levels of expected investment return - i.e. 10x investment versus 10% versus 0% versus -50% versus -100% investment (aka philanthropy) - change the corporate structure, risk, liquidity, and most importantly, impact of the organization invested in. They will explain the need to diversify available capital (from a -100% financial return to a 10x return) in order for the full range of social ventures (i.e. projects, nonprofits, small businesses, cooperatives, startups, and funds) to be able to find an appropriate line of capital that will empower them to achieve their mission.

Speakers:

Teresa Ish, Program Officer, Environment Program, Walton Family Foundation

Dr. Stephanie Gripne, Founder and CEO of Impact Finance Center, CO Impact Days and Impact Investing Institute

Carl Palmer, (Introductory Remarks) Founder at LegacyWorks Group

Mar 12: 8:00-8:45

Location: Four Square Ballroom

Keynote Panel: Aligning Your Endowment or Investment Portfolio for Impact

Catherine Burnett of the Phillips Family Foundation will moderate a panel between Shuaib A. Siddiqui  and Rodney D. Foxworth, Jr.. Shuaib A. Siddiqui is the Surdna Foundation’s Director of Impact Investing that made a decision to invest $100M. For the past two years, Shuaib has led the Foundation’s efforts to go beyond its mission-aligned investing strategy to build up the field of impact investing.  Rodney D. Foxworth, Jr. is Executive Director of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE), a national network of local economy innovators and place-based foundations and impact investors. BALLE has helped local philanthropic institutions throughout the U.S. and Canada reallocate over $100M into their communities and mission-aligned investing. The following session will explore the journey from making the original decision to practice.

Speaker:

Shuaib Siddiqui, Director of Impact Investing, Surdna Foundation

Rodney Foxworth, Jr., Executive Director, BALLE (Business Alliance for Local Living Economies)

Catherine Burnett, Chief Impact Officer and Chief Operating Officer, Phillips Family Foundation

March 11 8:00-8:45

Location: Marco Polo

Opening Remarks

The following session will introduce both the CO Impact Days 2019 and The National Opportunity Zone Summit, which has become the largest place-based impact investing community in the U.S. Founded in 2015, Impact Finance Center's flagship initiative, CO Impact Days and Impact Investing Institute is a three-year effort to catalyze $100M of investment in social ventures. While CO Impact Days has already surpassed the original objectives of catalyzing over $201M in impact investments before the third CO Impact Days. This year’s conference will focus on “Thriving Economies: Community Ownership, Opportunity Zones, and Full Spectrum Capital.”  

Speakers:

Rich Hoops, Hoops Family Foundation and Co-Founder of Impact Hub Boulder

Dr. Stephanie Gripne, Founder and CEO, Impact Finance Center, CO Impact Days and Impact Investing Institute

Jana Persky, Strategic Initiatives Manager, Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade

Chantal Unfug, Director, Colorado's Division of Local Government