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Measuring Impact in Opportunity Zones

$15.00

Content: Video Webinar Presentation with Q&A

Length: 1:14:12

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This webinar delves into the controversial topic of how impact and its measurement are showing up in the landscape of Opportunity Zones. Media reporting has created a narrative that investments will primarily benefit wealthy investors, a narrative that is difficult to rebut given the lack of regulation to promote transparency and accountability. In this environment, champions of the potential for Opportunity Zones have sought to push forward tools and resources that will increase the flow of capital to under-resourced communities and support community-defined solutions. But with regulations only finalized at the end of 2019, there’s limited data to support a more complete narrative of what’s occurring inside Opportunity Zones or how it’s affecting residents and workers.

This webinar and audience Q&A covers:

  • a high-level regulatory and legislative overview with an impact reporting lens; an
  • introduction to the Opportunity Zone Reporting Framework
  • concrete examples of how the framework is operationalized among fund managers, developers, and communities
  • the potential for a shared framework to understand impact and longer term outcomes of Opportunity Zones.

Webinar panelists include Fran Seegull, who directs the U.S. Impact Investing Alliance, an impact investing field building organization, Jennifer Collins of Georgetown University’s Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation, and Adrian Franco of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Their organizations partnered together with multi-stakeholder engagement to develop the Opportunity Zones Reporting Framework— a shared approach to measuring and managing for impact in Opportunity Zones. Jane Reisman, a social impact advisor engaged with field building and practice of impact measurement and management, will serve as moderator.

Participants

JENNIFER COLLINS

JENNIFER COLLINS is a Fellow-in-Residence at the Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation. The Beeck Center is an experiential hub housed at Georgetown University that incubates leading-edge, ecosystem ideas in service of the common good. Jen leads the Beeck Center’s work on Opportunity Zones where her team supports the original intentionality of the legislation and uses the conversation swell around the topic to talk about and test new models of community investment.

A purpose-driven leader who has created a platform for success across a wide range of focus areas including real estate, hospitality, education, humanitarian and wellness initiatives, Jen has spent the majority of her career working on the principal ownership side of commercial real estate. Her experience includes roles with LaSalle Hotel Properties, Westbrook Partners, and Tishman Realty & Construction. In addition to her corporate roles, Jen has worked on various community development initiatives in East Africa, Harlem and Anacostia. Jen is a graduate of Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration, where she was a member of the Women’s Varsity Basketball team.

ADRIAN FRANCO

ADRIAN FRANCO leads the community development finance team (CoDeFi) at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. CoDeFi aims to advance inclusive economic development strategies in low and moderate-income communities by serving as a catalyst for innovative, measurable, and impactful projects. Current initiatives include a match-making program to connect investors with community development projects in Puerto Rico, tools to advance impact reporting and community engagement in Opportunity Zones and a survey of community development financial institutions. He also chairs the New York Fed’s Community Advisory Group, an advisory board of nonprofit organizations, and is a member of the Bank’s fintech steering committee.

In his previous role as the New York Fed’s Director of Education, Franco oversaw the Bank’s programs for students and educators and implemented an internship program to foster the institution’s diversity goals. Before joining the New York Fed, Franco served as executive director of Qualitas of Life Foundation, a nonprofit organization advancing financial inclusion. He also held policy related roles at the Mexican Secretariat of Foreign Affairs and Secretariat of Public Education. He serves in the executive board of TruFund Financial Services and the advisory board of the New Jersey City University Business School. He graduated from Boston University with a Bachelor of Science in business administration, and holds a Masters in International Affairs and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. His doctorate dissertation is on financial inclusion of Latino immigrants.

JANE REISMAN

JANE REISMAN is an experienced social sector evaluator and impact measurement practitioner, and key contributor to the development of measurement, learning and best practices to the fields of philanthropy and impact investing. As the founder and leader of ORS Impact for over 25 years, Jane developed a record of engaging in new frontiers of evaluation and measurement- especially those that require innovative and practical approaches. She is active in field building efforts around impact measurement and management, having contributed to a formative body of literature as an advisor to the Rockefeller Foundation and acting as a convener and presenter on IMM at numerous events. She currently works as a social impact advisor and co-founder of Moving Beyond which promotes strategic learning and diversity, equity and inclusion.

FRAN SEEGULL

FRAN SEEGULL is the Executive Director of the U.S. Impact Investing Alliance. The Alliance works to increase awareness of impact investing in the United States, foster deployment of impact capital across asset classes globally, and partner with stakeholders, including government, to build the impact investing ecosystem. Seegull was the Chief Investment Officer and Managing Director of Investments at ImpactAssets where she headed investment management for The Giving Fund—an impact investing donor advised fund. Seegull also oversaw product development and managed the Global Sustainable Agriculture and Microfinance Plus Notes.

Prior to joining ImpactAssets, Seegull was Managing Director at Funk Ventures, an early-stage impact venture capital firm. She also served as Vice President of Business Development at Novica, an online retailer of products made by artisans in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Seegull has a BS in Economics from Barnard College at Columbia University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. She serves on the Investment Committee of Align Impact, the Investment Advisory Committee of RSF Social Finance and the Advisory Council to the Case i3 Initiative on Impact Investing at Duke University. She tweets on impact investing at @franseegull.

PETER TRUOG

PETER TRUOG is a co-founder of The Opportunity Exchange, the leading platform for connecting Opportunity Zone project owners, investors, and community leaders. The mission of The Opportunity Exchange is to work with actors across the Opportunity Zone ecosystem to make Opportunity Zone investments as transparent, collaborative, efficient, and impact-driven as possible. The platform currently has over $4b worth of Opportunity Zone projects listed in 20+ states, with approximately 900 investors registered on the platform. The Opportunity Exchange works with eleven licensed community partners in ten different states, and has been covered by Bloomberg Tax, the Washington Post, and Forbes, among others.

Prior to launching The Opportunity Exchange, Peter worked at The Fund for Our Economic Future, a community and economic development non-profit dedicated to advancing inclusive economic growth in Northeast Ohio. Prior to that, he worked at Oliver Wyman, an international management consulting firm. Peter currently lives in Cleveland, Ohio. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard College.

Featuring

Laurie Lane-Zucker

Laurie Lane-Zucker

Laurie Lane-Zucker is Founder and CEO of Impact Entrepreneur, PBC, an impact economy business that hosts the Impact Entrepreneur Network — a large, global network of “systems-minded” entrepreneurs, investors, and scholars of social and environmental innovation — and editor and publisher of Impact Entrepreneur, a digital magazine covering the emerging Impact Economy. For over 30 years, Laurie has been a “pioneer” (Forbes) and recognized leader in sustainability, social enterprise, and impact investing. Laurie was the founding Executive Director of the international environmental organization, Orion Society, which publishes the celebrated Orion Magazine, as well as the founder of a global sustainability think-tank, the Triad Institute, and Hotfrog, a Founding B Corporation, GIIRS Pioneer Company, and the first company ever to complete an equity transaction on an impact investment exchange. Laurie is the bestselling and multiple award-winning publisher and editor of books and magazines on sustainability and social impact — having worked with such acclaimed authors as Wendell Berry, Barry Lopez, Terry Tempest Williams, and David James Duncan — and the author of numerous articles on entrepreneurship and impact investing. Laurie is contributing author to the recently published academic textbook from World Scientific, Sustainability: Business and Investment Implications (2023).