Our COO Shreya Sasaki joins Dr. Hei-ock Kim, Marci Bair, and Michelle Burkart to discuss gender equity at work in this Employee Rights Center Facebook Live event.
Employee Rights Center: Gender equity at work
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All posts by Wilda Wong
Wilda is the senior manager of marketing & communications at Mission Driven Finance. When not talking about impact investing, she enjoys attending film festivals (virtually + in person) and tasting creative ice cream and gelato flavor combinations. Learn more about Wilda here.
Why I invest: Rachel Lozano Castro
One of the youngest people to support Mission Driven Finance portfolio companies, Rachel Lozano Castro leaned into her passion and know-how to organize a shared donor-advised fund (DAF) with her family that supports our flagship place-based strategy Advance.
Our fund is a “myth-buster and courageous innovation”
We are proud to be a part of Integrated Capital Investing’s The Transformative 25 List, funds that are transforming finance for people and the planet.
Impact investing and anti-racism: From contemplation to action
We were honored to speak with Shereen Daniels of HR rewired about our journey to being an anti-racist company.
Impact investing deep dive — How to generate impact across different asset classes
Impact investing is often misunderstood. Is it a subset of investing or philanthropy? Come learn about how to incorporate impact investing into your investment strategy, and explore possible career paths in the impacting investing space.
How Lauren Grattan thinks about risk
Shoutout Socal recently checked in with our Co-founder and Chief Community Officer Lauren Grattan in its local stories series and asked her how she thinks about risk.
Now is the time to try philanthropic investing
In a nutshell, the federal government built temporary tax incentives into the CARES Act to urge Americans to make charitable contributions in 2020 and support our neighbors. For those who are in a position to give or do impact investing, there’s no time like the present.
Community Finance Fellowship showcase
Hear directly from the 2020 cohort fellows— Andrew Moncada, Essence Rodriguez, Louise Jordan, Crystal Sevilla, and Benson Ochira—about their career goals and their experiences thus far changing the face and flow of finance.
![San Diego Foundation Sends First $1.5 Million To Nonprofits Hit By COVID-19 [KPBS]](https://www.missiondrivenfinance.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/cafe-KPBS-story-800x500.jpg)
San Diego Foundation Sends First $1.5 Million To Nonprofits Hit By COVID-19 [KPBS]
The first $1.5 million in loans from The San Diego Foundation’s small business and nonprofit program have gone out to eight local organizations, the foundation announced Tuesday, part of a $5 million fund for organizations impacted by COVID-19.
First $1.5M deployed to San Diego County nonprofits hit by COVID-19
San Diego-based impact investment fund manager Mission Driven Finance has deployed $1.5M in loans to San Diego County nonprofits that have been impacted by COVID-19, thanks to $5M in seed funding from The San Diego Foundation as part of the San Diego County COVID-19 Small Business & Nonprofit Loan Program.
![San Diego County expands small business loan program to include businesses in cities [The San Diego Union-Tribune]](https://www.missiondrivenfinance.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/SD-County-admin-building-800x500.jpg)
San Diego County expands small business loan program to include businesses in cities [The San Diego Union-Tribune]
“San Diego County supervisors unanimously agreed Tuesday to expand the county’s $5 million small business loan COVID relief program regionwide to small businesses operating in cities,” The San Diego Union-Tribune reports.
Real estate for early care & education: A promising venture
We’re honored to share that David—along with early care and education expert Laura Kohn and community finance fellow Essence Rodriguez—has joined the 2020 cohort of the Promising Ventures Fellowship to explore using real estate and finance to improve access to quality early child care.
Our commitments to being anti-racist
As a financial services firm, we must address long-held racist beliefs in the world of finance and commit to doing better. Here’s how we are working on it.
Community Finance Fellowship: Learning to use finance as a tool for change in a time of action
The inaugural cohort of Community Finance Fellows—Louise Jordan, Andrew Moncada, Benson Ochira, Essence Rodriguez, Crystal Sevilla— impress and inspire us every day and it’s not fair to keep their wisdom to ourselves. So we invited them to share their thoughts on how finance can invoke true racial and economic justice. The fellows’ perspectives and lived experiences give us invaluable insight into how we can use finance as a tool for real impact.
WES Mariam Assefa Fund Spotlights Mission Driven Finance
WES Mariam Assefa Fund, one of the visionary supporters of the Community Finance Fellowship, spotlights Mission Driven Finance.
Introducing the San Diego County COVID-19 Small Business and Nonprofit Loan Program
The San Diego County COVID-19 Small Business & Nonprofit Loan Program (SBNLP) is designed to help the small businesses and nonprofits at the heart of our community get back on track.
How the Community Finance Fellows are learning during a pandemic
While sheltering-in-place during a pandemic, we welcomed five Community Finance Fellows to our team in March to begin learning in a virtual environment: Louise Jordan, a renewed San Diegan with a legal background who moved back from Virginia to join us; Andrew Moncada, a financial analyst from Florida who wants to run his own impact investment firm one day; Benson Ochira, a refugee from Uganda with a degree in business management; Essence Rodriguez, an undergrad research fellow with the U.S. Immigration Policy Center; and Crystal Sevilla, an executive assistant from San Diego with a deep interest in economics and finance. See how they are learning during a pandemic.
Finding the way back through evidence-based holistic treatment
The Way Back uses trauma-informed care in its client activities—clinical groups, education groups, mindfulness meditation, relapse prevention groups, codependency groups, anger management, emotional regulation, and individual psychotherapy. “We are training men to be better fathers, better husbands, better employees, to stay out of prison, to work, to communicate,” says The Way Back Executive Director Chris Thomas, a licensed therapist who has been sober for 25 years. “Men are an important part of family structure, and addiction is a family disease.”
