Capital Institute Blog

July 9, 2012 Update—Since we posted our profile of More for Mission (M4M) in June 2010, the organization grew to a total membership of 96 foundations. In May 2012 M4M and Program Related Investment Makers Network (PRI) combined to form the Mission Investors Exchange. The merger of the PRI Makers Network and More for Mission was the end result of…

August 2012 Update—Since we published our profile of Mark Pinsky and the Opportunity Finance Network, Pinsky has continued on at the organization’s helm, deepening OFN’s commitment to supporting a stronger CDFI industry.  OFN recently kicked off the “Create Jobs USA” program in partnership with Starbucks Coffee.  Since its inception the Create Jobs USA fund has provided  approximately $80 million to…

The Center for Labor and Community Research had reason to celebrate last week when we visited with them in Chicago to work on our next Field Guide to Investing in a Regenerative Economy Study. CLCR’s tactical expression, the Chicago Manufacturing Renaissance Campaign and its Austin Polytechnic Academy, had just been singled out for high praise in a study commissioned by…

Despite a well-publicized once-in-a-decade meeting that brought government officials, businesses, and NGOs from 188 nations to the negotiation table, the Rio+20 environmental summit has concluded on Friday with no enforceable commitments on climate change and other ecological crises, frustrating participants and civil society alike. Some progress was made on the sidelines through NGOs and businesses, but there was an overarching…

Watch Money, Power and Wall Street: Part One on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE. On May 1st 2012 at 9PM EST, PBS Frontline featured Capital Institute Founder and President John Fullerton in their special “Money, Power, & Wall Street.” Chronicling the 2008 financial crisis and behind-the-scenes events that took place, the four part series provides illuminating critique of Wall Street…

Laura Flanders’s interview with John Fullerton on making finance safe for the planet went live online last week. In it, Flanders asks penetrating questions about the Newtonian groundings of neoclassical economics and finance, reaching full employment without economic growth, and the role of dematerialization in a sustainable economy. John’s responses detail the underlying theme of Capital Institute’s work: structuring a…

August 2012 Update—In June 2010 Capital Institute posted the profile below of the Global Impact Investors Network (GIIN), a not-for-profit focused on promoting a more transparent and efficient global impact investing market. The Global Impact Investors Network (GIIN) has since made significant strides through a variety of initiatives toward its goal of supporting the growth of the market sector.  In…

European leaders have begun to discuss options for moving forward with a process called “enhanced cooperation,” in which nine or more members of the EU agree to work on a proposal together, to bring a trans-European financial transactions tax to fruition.  Vocal supporters for this process include German Chancellor Angela Markel, Austrian Finance Minister Maria Fekter, and leaders in France,…

Capital Institute fellow Liana Scobie has taken a job at the innovative company TerraCycle and has sent us these thoughts from the field on how their work is making a real diferences in the core areas of Capital Institute’s focus – sustainability for a full world and a more equitable distribution of wealth. Proof That It Is Working On January…

“Mismeasuring our Lives: Why GDP Doesn’t Add Up,” a panel discussion held at Columbia University on December 7, brought four distinguished economists together for an open conversation that began with the need for policymakers to look beyond GDP as a standard economic measure to address both ecological constraints and human well-being but moved to the central challenge of our time:…

Last week, Capital Institute network organization Demos released a striking report and series of graphics on the myth that economic growth equals progress.  The report lays out the argument for rethinking our national accounts while the graphics visually detail the failures of GDP as a measurement of progress. Click here to download the report.   Click here to enlarge the…

July 2012 Update—Since we originally posted our interview with Clifford Rosenthal, the long-time President and CEO of the National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions, the CDFI industry has continued to face considerable challenges. However, it has also moved towards resolving many of its long-standing problems in the past 2 years. When we spoke with him last, Rosenthal named the…

Robert Eller commented on the post Flawed, Ignorant and Dangerous: A Bain Capital Partner’s Worldview on the Future of Finance blog last week that Edward Conard’s book “‘Unitended Consequences’ may turn out to be the most unintended act of patriotism of the” for the conversations it sparks and lines it draws in the sand on issues of inequality.  This has surely proven true on…

Last week we opened a discussion on the idea that “while resilience is critical for a system’s survival, in times of great instability, that same resilience can be problematic for the larger system(s) in which the resilient system is housed.” A vibrant conversation in the comments section has since ensued, the main themes of which are the hierarchy of systems, the management of systems, and…