News & Stories

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.

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.

Meet Laura Galinson, director of community relations at Mission Driven Finance and a dedicated philanthropist. Laura has worn an impressive number of hats, from a world-traveling and award-winning Associated Press photographer to a publicist at Harper Collins. Laura explains, “Even though I’ve had very different roles, my work has always been rooted in being a connector and changemaker.”

Recently, our Co-founder and Chief Community Officer Lauren Grattan, and Freedom for Immigrants Co-founder and Co-executive Director Christina Mansfield spoke with Morgan Simon of Candide Group in Forbes.com to discuss why they launched the Freedom100 Fund—and how it’s a vital tool for investors and activists to join the fight for immigrant freedom.

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.

The best anti-racism advice I’ve gotten so far is from my teammate Louise Jordan: Whatever we do, we have to stop recreating the same narrative. Unfortunately, many of the actions we White people take end up reinforcing existing power dynamics and telling the same, false story—that Black people and people of color have inherent risk and problems and that White people must “save” them from themselves.