News from the Social Finance Institute, October 13, 2026

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York hosted “Impact-First Investing: Matching Capital to Purpose” on September 14, in partnership with the Social Finance Institute and the Rustandy Center for Social Sector Innovation at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. The recording is now online. It includes a live demonstration of the Impact-First Investing (IFI) Tool, the free model whose debut Impact Entrepreneur reported in June.

The New York Fed’s event page puts the priorities of impact-first investments in order. Social impact comes first, with preserving capital and earning a modest financial return behind it. Kirstin Hill, President and COO of Social Finance, placed them in the gap between philanthropy, where a dollar is given away, and traditional investing, where it seeks as much return as its risk allows.

Hill opened with Benjamin Franklin, whose 1789 codicil, she noted, left 1,000 pounds each to Boston and Philadelphia for small loans to young tradesmen at modest interest, so that the money would come back and go out again. Her modern example was the contract for deed, which she described as a $200 billion market in home loans that carry a mortgage’s costs while leaving the buyer without ownership. Economists and the New York Fed, she said, call such a gap a “missing market,” because conventional financing does not reach it. “We can build the markets that are missing or fund the people who will,” she concluded.

Otho Kerr, Director of Community Impact Investing at the New York Fed, moderated a panel with Amon Anderson of Acumen America, Pia Desai of Samvid Ventures, Lucas Ramirez of Grameen America and Stephen Vicinelli of Social Finance. Karen Anderson and David Socolow of the Social Finance Institute and Daniel Buckman of the Rustandy Center then demonstrated the tool. It sets a pool of charitable capital held in grants and market-rate investments beside the same pool with impact-first investments added, under assumptions about risk, return, impact and time that the user chooses.

The IFI Tool is free at ifitool.org and built for foundations, donor-advised fund account holders, family offices and other mission-driven funders. The New York Fed’s event page carries the recording, with timestamps for each segment.

Sources: the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s event page and the Social Finance Institute’s October 13 newsletter, event recap and published text of Kirstin Hill’s remarks. Photo courtesy of the Social Finance Institute.