Welcome Back to the Bonfires of Social Enterprise. On this episode, we continue with part two of the Our Common Futures conference. On this episode, Jennifer and Natalie, catch up with conference attendees Melanie Audette with the Mission Investors Exchange, Brenda Hunt with the Battle Creek Community Foundation, Amy Peterson of Rebel Nell, David Contorer with Hebrew Free Loans, and Jason Paulateer with PNC Bank and Foundation.

To kick of Part Two, Jennifer sits down with Melanie Audette of the Mission Investors Exchange…..

Jennifer: What I'd like to start off today, during our talk is to have you tell me a little bit about yourself and your organization and then we'll go from there.

Melanie: Well, I'm the Senior Vice President at Mission Investor's Exchange. I am based in Seattle and Mission Investor's Exchange is a 12 year old organization with offices in New York and San Francisco and then we have some staff in Seattle, but we're a very small but mighty team that has a membership consisting of mainly foundations of all types and sizes across the US who are either building or expanding an impact investing program. And we started out as the PRI Makers Network 12 years ago, when foundations were really focused mainly on doing program-related investments, and about five years ago we merged with The More Formation Campaign, which was a campaign to encourage foundations to devote two percent of their endowments to invest for a mission.

Jennifer: I love that. So here at the conference so far, what are your impressions then of how it works and how it applies to your mission through Mission Investor's Exchange?

Melanie: Well the independent sector conference as well as the Council of Michigan Foundation's Conference, where we are today, represents two things for me specifically. First, the independent sector has a very much more broad attendance and participation than a lot of the conferences that we attend and that includes the foundations who are at the heart of our network, but also those who play a very important role in the ecosystem around impact investing. And that includes non-profit organizations who oftentimes have social entrepreneurial goals and projects and so, therefore can be investees of impact investment's five foundations as well as those who support them in the field, so investment advisors, philanthropic advisors, attorneys, and accountants. All of those participants really play an incredibly important part helping foundations to identify who investees can be and to be able to do the work efficiently and within the law and correctly and responsibly.

The second part is the Council of Michigan Foundations, Mission Investor's Exchange has had a five-year partnership with CMF, and we've worked together over the years to provide education first for those foundations who are interested in learning about impact investing. Through this partnership, Michigan has become the model, really for the whole country informing what's now an infrastructure within that association to help foundations not only to learn about impact investing, but to actually build and identify investment opportunities, create a pipeline for investments, support them in that work and now this year, they've hired an Executive in Residence at CMF to help on a local and regional level, their membership to do this.

Jennifer: So understanding that you're drawing from a large group with a lot of people here from a lot of different areas all across the globe, what do you feel has been the highlight of the conference so far for you?

Melanie: Well, one of the highlights for me, because I was a speaker was seeing a room that was absolutely packed full of people who are interested in mission investing or impact investing and we've found that recently, that there is an incredible amount of interest, but what's most gratifying is to see the participants in the audience really respond to the examples of this work taking place in real life and we had panelists in our break out session, who helped people to understand, that even as a small foundation you can be responsive to the community, through different types of financial tools like alone, that really is a more appropriate use of capital for a particular situation, or an investment in a four concept business that has a mission, in this case it was Green Infrastructure that really fits our philanthropic mission as well, but it's a four profit investment that is also a real possibility for foundations to aline more of their capital with their mission.

Second, and this was really personally gratifying as well, I got to see Mo Rocca, and Mo Rocca is one of my heroes. He was moderating a session yesterday, and he has a kids show on CBS on Saturday mornings that my husband and I watch and it's called Innovation Nation.

Jennifer: Nice.

Melanie: And he did an incredible job talking to Gary Wozniak, Amy Peterson, and Davita Davison yesterday on plenary stage. These three social entrepreneurs were so inspiring. Davita Davison actually brought tears to my eyes, talking about her work in the food space and one of the quotes I loved from Davina yesterday was, she was talking about the people that she's in a sense mentoring and she said "I encourage them to run for the United States of America, for the President of the United States of America". And to me, a statement like that means that with leadership like this in communities, she is helping people to understand that anything is possible and our session, you know Impact Investing, The Art of the Possible, was really personified on that plenary stage yesterday by those speakers.

Jennifer:

What are you gonna take back to Mission Investor's Exchange from this conference? And then, in turn, share with the world? What are your plans?

Melanie: You know, it sounds funny but, at these conferences, there are oftentimes a lot of ... the sponsors are the ...

Jennifer: The exhibitions?

Melanie: The exhibitions.

Jennifer: Yep.

Melanie: So, a lot of times people just walk through the exhibitions, and you know that can be frustrating sometimes for the exhibitors, but I find that in talking with the exhibitors, I really learn a lot, but also find things to bring back and for this conference and this set of exhibitors, which is really excellent, I've found several things. One is the Fetzer Institute. The Fetzer Institute is an organization that is focused on, now in this environment, which is a little bit polarized, you know talking about spiritual healing.

Jennifer: Yeah.

Melanie: And this reconnected me with some work of Parker Palmer who is also another hero of mine and it reminded me that for our conference in May in Chicago next year, that some things to focus on include some of that racial and spiritual healing. Also, there was a group out of the booth in Chicago. There was an NBA program, a weekend program with full scholarships and for those in the non-profit sector who were thinking about learning more and engaging more in the impact investing space, that's an enormous opportunity to go from maybe having a social work background or a liberal arts background, which a lot of non-profit executives have, to having that opportunity that's funded by a foundation to have a full scholarship for a Saturday weekend program in Chicago. I thought that was amazing.

And finally, the artwork. There's an artist that's collating the ideas, the inspiration from the community in order to create a community artwork here at the conference and I'm excited to see that come to fruition and also look at the opportunities for engaging with the arts community next year. So these are really practical things that I've brought back from the conference, but they're really valuable. It's a part of the value that I get from attending a conference here.

Jennifer: And I'm in 100 percent agreement with you when you talk about art and what art can do and talking about being polarized in multiple different areas right now. Art can heal. Art can build bridges, and by being able to incorporate that into your conference next year, I know it's an amazing takeaway. I think that it's gonna be very impactful for the attendees and it will help heal and build those bridges. That's great.

Thanks, Jennifer and Melanie, for your parting thoughts on how very important community art can be along with Melanie’s note on the great exhibitors. Next up, Natalie catches up with Brenda Hunt, CEO of the Battle Creek Community Foundation. We jump into the conversation just as Brenda begins to discuss how much all of the different sectors of funders intersect, especially at this conference.

Brenda Hunt:

Yeah, I think the deeper we get in, the more we all crisscross and the more we're all alike. We're more alike than different, even in the sectors. We should borrow, and pick and choose from each other. And we should use for profits when it makes most sense, and create for profits when it makes most sense for the situation and use nonpr