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2024 CI year in review pic final

2024 Year in Review

By Jennifer Pryce|

December 20, 2024

A Note from Jenn

2024 has been a remarkable year for Calvert Impact. Six years ago, we set a goal to become a multi-product impact platform and 2024 has seen that goal realized with several new products and partnerships — the Access Small Business Program, Cut Carbon Note, Climate United, and the Mission Driven Bank Fund — raising and deploying capital.

We’ve embraced new ways to execute our mission and as we wrap up our final year of our 2023-2025 plan and begin to craft our next three-year strategy, we see many exciting opportunities to continue demonstrating how capital markets can better serve communities. We’re evolving along with the impact investing industry, which after many years of being confused with ESG, is effectively differentiating itself. As I told the Financial Times’ Sarah Murray, “There’s a lot more understanding that, at its core, impact investing is thinking about investment for solutions.”

This clarity is helping impact investing continue its march toward the mainstream. In August, I was thrilled to be named to the Forbes 50 over 50 list that recognizes women around the world doing innovative work. Beyond the honor of being in the company of such remarkable women, I was particularly excited to be nominated to the investment list, which signals further recognition of impact investing’s true role as an investment approach, rather than philanthropic strategy.

I recently had the opportunity to reflect further on being a woman in finance when I wrote about my journey to impact investing in Green Money Journal. Calvert Impact is one of only 18% of all financial firms managed by women and as I wrote in the piece, I hope that more women will join us in the field, especially at this moment as we are poised to transition to a clean energy economy. There are tremendous opportunities emerging and we need leaders who can create a different ending to the typical story that accompanies extreme economic transition, where wealth becomes more concentrated amongst a small number of winners.

As the year winds down, I am finding time to read books and listen to podcasts. One of my early mentors, Clara Miller, just released a podcast episode that is worth a listen. Among other topics, Clara talks about the transformative power of growth capital for nonprofits. Calvert Impact is a testament to this. The achievements shared in this letter, the development and growth of new programs and products over the past decade, are the result of many things: dedicated staff, thoughtful strategy, some good luck, but also critical investments in growth capital from Heron, Ford and MacArthur Foundations in 2014 that gave us the ability to build, to grow, and to take risks.

We’re immensely grateful to our foundation partners, our investors, and all of our supporters who have believed in our vision and our ability to bring it to fruition: thank you. We have big plans for the future and look forward to continuing our work together in 2025 and beyond.

Record Sales for the Community Investment Note®

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The appetite for impact investing is growing and the Community Investment Note® is a great reflection of that. 2024 will be the largest sales year for the Community Investment Note®, its balance is now north of $600 million, and we’re approaching nearly $3 billion in cumulative sales since we began selling the Note in 1995.

But as we wrote in the Community Investment Note® Annual Impact Report, “even as the portfolio has grown in size and scope, our investment approach remains unchanged: we still believe in the power of relationships. We don't just crunch numbers; we get to know our partners beyond their financials, which allows us to tailor our capital to their needs and maximize impact in the process.”

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Investors Continue to be Most Passionate About the Environment

Continuing a trend from past years, our biennial investor survey revealed the areas respondents care most about are environmental sustainability (58% included in their top 3 choices), renewable energy (36%), and racial justice & equity (30%). Following those, a good number of investors also identified affordable housing (23%) and gender equity (21%) as top issue areas.

Investors continue to be eager for new investment opportunities. Over the past two years, 55% of respondents have made new impact investments and 58% of investors reported planning to increase the amount of impact investments in their portfolio in the next year. 84% of financial advisor respondents, specifically, reported planning on increasing this amount on behalf of their clients in the next year.

Climate United Takes Off

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Climate United, a coalition spearheaded by Calvert Impact, the Community Preservation Corporation, and Self-Help, received a nearly $7 billion award from the Environmental Protection Agency's National Clean Investment Fund, a once-in-a-lifetime program designed to make our economy greener, stronger, and more equitable for all. The coalition will invest in clean energy projects across the U.S. so that every American benefits from good-paying green jobs, lower energy bills, and better public health.

Climate United has already made several investments, including a groundbreaking solar project with the University of Arkansas system and a program that may invest up to $250 million to purchase electric drayage trucks to lower operational costs and reduce air pollution in port communities. In addition to making investments, Climate United has also launched a $30 million program to provide grants for project planning and development in underserved communities across the U.S. beginning with rural and Native communities.

The Climate United team is hard at work and adding new members to increase capacity. Check out job opportunities here and stay tuned for more investment announcements in the new year.

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Creating a Better Future Through Child-Lens Investing

Our investors are passionate about helping children, but for too long we lacked a way to intentionally direct capital toward kids outside of the education sector. That changed in 2024 with the launch of UNICEF’s Child Lens Investing framework, a holistic toolkit that helps investors understand how their investments are benefiting — or harming — children. Calvert Impact was part of a cohort of asset managers consulted by UNICEF and UNICEF USA while developing the framework and we hope that more investors can join us in adopting a child lens with the tools that UNICEF has created.

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Expanding Affordable Credit for Small Businesses

Validity Construction - from Battleborn Growth Fund

In June, we announced the launch of the Access Small Business Program, a public-private partnership that uses funds from the State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI) to bring access to capital and technical assistance to historically underbanked small businesses, as well as access to capital markets for community lenders.

This program builds on our work to leverage the SSBCI to drive a more inclusive financial system for small businesses across the country.

Current participating state programs include the New York Forward Loan Fund 2, New Jersey Capital Access Fund, Nevada Battle Born Growth Microloan program, and the Washington Small Business Flex Fund 2, which was launched over the summer.

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Cut Carbon Note® Continues to Grow

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The second issuance of the Cut Carbon Note®, a $400 million offering, closed in September, bringing in over 100 investors.

The Cut Carbon Note® is an asset-backed, investment-grade rated, fixed-income product that seeks to reduce carbon emissions by financing sustainability upgrades for commercial buildings. The current Cut Carbon Portfolio is projected to save over 172,000 metric tonnes of carbon and $54.1 million in energy costs. And the portfolio and impact continues to grow, with more projects to come in the new year.

The Cut Carbon Note® was awarded the 2024 Grunin Prize for Law and Social Entrepreneurship by the New York University School of Law for its innovation, impact, and scalability.

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A Milestone Year for the Mission Driven Bank Fund

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In April, the Mission Driven Bank Fund (MDBF) announced its first investments in Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) and Minority Depository Institution (MDI) banks committed to expanding financial services in underserved communities. The portfolio has grown throughout the year and now includes seven banks.

MDBF also completed its second close of $65 million, bringing the Fund to over $177 million of capital and welcomed new limited partners, bringing the total number of investors to 10.

This fall MDBF appointed its mission advisory committee, an independent Committee comprised of seven industry experts that will independently evaluate how the Fund is meeting its mission goals.

And this month, MDBF announced that it achieved full participation in its technical services program, which aims to develop organizational capacity at mission-driven banks across country.

Learn more about the Mission Driven Bank Fund here.

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Thank you for your support in 2024!

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