Marco Bade’s Post

The real question for next week's Funding a Sustainable Future conference is: how is the entrepreneurial challenge any different for a sustainable innovation than for any other start-up? The perceived difference between an output serving the common good and an output serving private gain is at the heart of this muddle, the one understood commonly to be charitable and philanthropic; the other believed to be commercial and profit-orientated. My purpose at Funding a Sustainable Future will be to break down this confusion and help entrepreneurs and investors understand that the distinction is artificial. Commercial gain is not only available, it is essential that entrepreneurs can derive it from innovations that help our world to fight climate change. Otherwise they will wither and die. Tickets still available from Kata Ovari.

5 Strategies for Securing Funding for Your Regenerative Community Project From traditional grants and loans to innovative crowdfunding and impact investing, there's a buffet of financial options: Self-funded - paying for the project out of your own pocket, or the pockets of co-founders and current or future members. Crowdfunded - raising or borrowing money from your support network, which may or may not be people who will be involved in the project. Privately funded - accepting private investment from a party that will be involved in the project temporarily in exchange for future value in shares, return on investment, or simply seeing it built. Publicly funded - obtaining capital through public programs targeted for what you are building. Minga - From the Quechua people and other South American tribes, this means creative ways to meet the needs of the community (finding tools to build the village, affording enough time to work on building it, etc.) that don’t involve dollar-for-dollar transactions but instead communal labor and collective exchanges. I explore these strategies for funding and some examples of them in practice in my article, "How to Fund a Regenerative Village" https://lnkd.in/eXfkP9np

UNDP Amplifies Global Impact with Crowdfunding Initiatives for Sustainable Development. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is revolutionizing its approach to fostering sustainable development and eradicating poverty by embracing crowdfunding as a dynamic tool to engage communities and drive funding towards impactful local initiatives. With the launch of its fourth series of Crowdfunding Academies in 2024, UNDP is expanding its reach to empower teams worldwide, aiming to raise over $3.1 million through 17 successful campaigns to date. These academies are designed to nurture fundraising and community-building skills, significantly enhancing the visibility of UNDP's efforts across various regions, including Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, the Caribbean, Arab States, and Africa. Through projects like "Save The Legacy" in earthquake-stricken Türkiye and supporting women entrepreneurs in Ethiopia, UNDP demonstrates the powerful synergy of innovation, collaboration, and direct public support in advancing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).  #UNDP #CrowdfundingForChange #SustainableDevelopment #GlobalImpact #InnovationInAction

After six years of building Raise Green, the largest and most inclusive climate investing community, I’ve decided to step away from my day-to-day role as CEO and Chair of the Board. We started Raise Green to build the first climate investment platform in the U.S. We wanted to make it easy for anyone to take climate action with their time or their money, designing a tool to get more people invested in the clean energy transition, and opening up access to capital for more underserved entrepreneurs, clean energy developers and climate tech companies. Today, that tool is fully built and at your fingertips. At Raise Green anyone can invest as little as $100 in clean energy, green bonds, and climate tech companies or deliver climate solutions by raising money from our growing community of 23,000 members. Raise Green has galvanized ~$10M into nearly 40 climate deals. January 2024 was our best month ever, with the largest number of issuers at one time on the platform. Thanks to your support, we’ve catalyzed over 160 million pounds of carbon pollution reductions and helped create nearly 130 green jobs. Importantly, ~70% of the capital raised on the platform has supported BIPOC or women-led companies – 14x more than the VC industry average. As an outspoken advocate for an equitable transition to a clean energy economy, Raise Green played a small but mighty role in helping to pass and implement the largest climate investments in our nation’s history.   As I take the next step in my personal and professional journey, I’ll forever appreciate the faith that every person in the Raise Green community has shown in our work— it truly wouldn’t have happened without you. Raise Green was built on the belief that no one person, company, or country can tackle the climate crisis alone. It will take all of us, and I’m proud to be working alongside each of you in this pursuit. I look forward to building on what we’ve accomplished together and contributing to this vital cause in new ways. It’s the organizer’s creed to organize yourself out of a job. I’m proud to hand over operational control to my phenomenal Co-Founder Jackie Logan, who brought 20+ years of Wall Street and capital markets experience and has helped drive the company's industry-leading financial innovation. Raise Green has developed a strong brand and market position because of the incredibly talented and dedicated team that has worked tirelessly to build the company into what it is today. With Jackie at the helm, I’m confident that Raise Green will continue to maintain a spotless compliance record while staying laser-focused on the values that have been our North Star for all these years: creating a more healthy, just, and sustainable future for all. From winning Startup Yale, to top 10 in our industry today, I'm incredibly proud of the company we've built together. Raise Green shines as a beacon of hope, showing that we can all benefit from the transition to a clean energy future. Onward and upward!

We are absolutely thrilled to report that we are running one of our most successful crowdfunding campaigns ever, for our upcoming multi-author book on ecological crisis, collapse and revolutionary change. This book will platform diverse underrepresented voices from around the world, as well as some well-known, much-respected authors, such as climate justice scholar-activist Brian Tokar, and Extinction Rebellion co-founder Gail Bradbrook. Today's fundraising target is £1300 (on the 9th August 2024). We managed to achieve £1200 on the 8th, but we simply must keep this momentum going to ensure that we raise the publication costs for the book. Please please support small publishers like Arkbound to produce vital diversely authored publications that insightfully tread complex paths forward toward profound societal change. We understand the cost of living crisis, but we also understand that some readers of this post CAN easily help us to achieve today's target of £1300 by a simple donation of £10 or £20. Just £10 entitles the donor to a free e-copy of the book. At the very least, please share this post...at the very least as a countermeasure to all the trash out there that's published in these times of crisis. Meanwhile, here's a blue jay. (Fundraising link here: https://lnkd.in/eEFqPBxP)

Impact Washing is when an impact investor believes their initiatives and funding are achieving social good when, from a beneficiary’s perspective, they’re instead having a bad impact. I got to share with the non-profits about Mundaly; building a new category to fight impact washing. How? Addressing the need for monitoring and evaluation to include the voices, opinions and concerns of impact beneficiaries. The audience agreed. Non-profits want to share stories from their communities with their funders and donors beyond pictures and biased reports. They want to raise more funds to continue making an impact in the regions they operate. Well, how do you do this beyond a few pictures displayed on your website or social media? 1. Sign Up to Mundaly => https://lnkd.in/djRTVcDe 2. We connect to your community participants 3. We give you a Fundability Report powered and backed by realtime impact beneficiaries data. 📌 Be Fundable. 📌 Promote transparency and accountability in social impact. Mulago Grameen Foundation Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Halcyon The Rockefeller Foundation Impact Investing Ghana Economist Impact Impact Investments at RWJF d-Node GCB Bank PLC Kasapreko PLC KGL FOUNDATION

Impact investing gives donors the chance to advance their philanthropic goals by investing in projects that generate positive social impact in addition to a financial return. Learn more about impact investing with NPT UK. #Philanthropy #Charity #Grantmaking

What if the change from your daily coffee could help change the world? When I came across Tomorrow 'rounding up' feature, it was a nice reminder that even the smallest actions can add up to make a difference. Every time you make a payment, it rounds up to the nearest euro, donating the difference to climate projects. Over time, these small contributions add up. In 2023, Tomorrow raised 703 017 euros, funding reforestation and education initiatives - all from spare change. This is a perfect example of how fintech can drive change! Discover more about Tomorrow's impact in their sustainability report 👇 #FintechForGood #Sustainability #Fintech

If anyone in my network is in the philanthropy space, or with a major corporate in their ESG team, TOM: Melbourne needs your support! Next week, my good friend Narelle Hinkley is pitching on behalf of TOM:Melbourne at The Funding Network Australia event to raise funds to be able to continue to deliver impactful change for people living with disabilities. About TOM: Melbourne are a Not for Profit organisation, #femalefounded and #femaleled focussed on delivering solutions where no obvious solution presently exists. We create and build products that improve the lives of people with a disability, where there is no obvious or current solution in the market. We focus on making assistive technology more accessible and affordable for people with complex needs. #fundraising #ESG #philanthropy #charity #NFP #innovation #tech #disabilities #sport #invention

💡 Testing Our First Crowdfunding Effort! =============================== We are raising 2,000CHF =============================== As an innovator and entrepreneur, one of the biggest challenges we face is raising capital to turn innovative ideas into reality. At CutOff Recycle, where we’re transforming human hair waste into organic fertilizers, this challenge is no different. Raising funds is crucial for scaling our impact, and while traditional methods are important, technology has made it easier than ever to access support from the global community despite the existing challenge that most African countries need a beneficiary from the 20 eligible countries on gofundme platform. We’d definitely want to explore existing African crowdfunding platforms that stretch globally. Back to it - so, we’re launching our first-ever crowdfunding campaign, targeting 2000 CHF as a part of our larger goal to raise 280,000 CHF. With these funds, we’ll install 500 collection bins at barbershops in Arusha to ensure proper hair waste management—bringing us one step closer to a more sustainable future. Your support is critical in helping us build a cleaner environment and empower local communities. Every donation, no matter how small, helps us achieve our goal and make a real difference. If you believe in sustainable innovation and want to support our journey, I invite you to contribute to our campaign. 👉 Donate now and be part of something impactful: [https://gofund.me/e3ece1d0] #Entrepreneurship #Crowdfunding #Sustainability #HairToFertilizer #WasteManagement #ImpactInvesting #Innovation #GreenEconomy #CommunitySupport