Advancing economic opportunity, Community engagement, Investors, News, Racial equity

Making Funding Accessible in the Asian Pacific Islander (API) Community

  • Posted by Lauren Grattan
  • On November 22, 2019
AdvanceAPI: A Partnership with the Asian Business Association of San Diego Doing your taxes. Buying a house. Raising a family. Some things are, by nature, challenging. Entrepreneurs in underestimated communities would also add finding investors and accessing startup capital to this list. As an entrepreneur, sourcing start-up capital can be time-consuming. Add in the factor of […]
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News, Team

B Corp: Best For the World Honoree

  • Posted by Lauren Grattan
  • On September 22, 2019
A year ago, nonprofit B Lab certified Mission Driven Finance as a B Corporation—akin to organic or fair trade certification but for our whole company. We were delighted to join the B Corp movement with other folks using business as a force for good. Certified B Corporations are businesses that meet the highest standards of […]
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Affordable homeownership, Investors, Why I invest

Why I invest in community: Kara Ballester, impact investor and philanthropist

  • Posted by Tyana Smith
  • On August 28, 2019
As lead investors in our Homebuilding Investment Fund, Kara Ballester and her husband Andy were instrumental in jumpstarting our efforts to accelerate affordable housing with San Diego Habitat for Humanity. We wanted to know—what motivated Kara to invest in affordable homeownership, and what has her experience with impact investing been like? We like to kick […]
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Advancing economic opportunity, Borrowers, Early childhood, Gender equity

Closing education gaps with creative capital

  • Posted by Tyana Smith
  • On August 18, 2019
How Advance borrower Bethany Chaffin used creative capital to enrich the lives of more students in North County San Diego When we first met Bethany Chaffin, director of the education enrichment center Friends of Willow Tree, in 2018 she faced a challenging capital gap. Friends of Willow Tree needed a loan ahead of private and […]
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Investors, Resources, Team, Why I invest

How Can We Make Investing in Our Community a Great Investment? Flip the Traditional Finance Model on Its Head.

  • Posted by Tyana Smith
  • On July 22, 2019
When we first launched Mission Driven Finance, we developed the Advance Fund with one primary question in mind: how can we make investing in our community a great investment?  The answer we found is to reimagine and reinvent finance to put the community’s needs first. We discovered incredible businesses and nonprofits committed to their communities […]
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Advancing economic opportunity, Borrowers, Community engagement, News, Why I invest

Developing Community with Creative Capital

  • Posted by Tyana Smith
  • On July 18, 2019
How Advance borrower Kris Schlesser Uses Creative Capital to strengthen community When we first met Kris Schlesser, founder of LuckyBolt, he was six years into a quest to make the perfect breakfast burrito easily accessible to professionals on the go. He had been financing the business with high-interest credit cards and microloans. Though he had […]
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Racial equity, Resources, Team

Storytelling for Change: Going Beyond Diversity to Create Belonging at Work

  • Posted by Tyana Smith
  • On June 13, 2019
Recently, our communications team completed the Storytelling for Change course, a free eight-week online course led by global changemakers +Acumen. We expected to learn strategies to better communicate with the public, but we walked away with so much more than that. We ended up with a stronger understanding of our own personal stories and how […]
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Advancing economic opportunity, Community engagement, Events, News, Racial equity, Team

Thoughts from the Road: Small Business Drives Strong Communities Across the Country

  • Posted by Lauren Grattan
  • On May 23, 2019
David and I spent National Small Business Week on the road in New York; Columbus, Ohio; and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. We spoke with stakeholders from different walks of life who all recognize the transformative power of small business from varied angles. Let me tell you. It was wild. Mental gymnastics at its finest, switching gears […]
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