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 […]

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 […]

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 […]