Governments as Impact Investors - Chicago Impact Investing Showcase Recap

By Sophia Friedman

2022 is an exciting year as this marks Impact Engine’s 10th annual Chicago Impact Investing Showcase! This year’s showcase explores the roles of four key impact investor types: government, individuals, foundations and private funds. Our first event on April 5th focused on on government. Jessica Droste Yagan moderated a discussion with Melissa Conyears-Ervin (Treasurer, City of Chicago), Michael Frerichs (Treasurer, State of Illinois), Bryan Echols (Director of Impact Investments, Illinois State Treasurer), and Brad McConnell (CEO, Allies for Community Business).

The event kicked off with opening remarks from Jessica around how we think of terminology around impact. She explained the various types of investing: socially responsible investing (SRI), environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing, and Impact Investing. As Jessica explained, SRI includes screening investments in or out based on whether or not they align with a specific mission or set of values; ESG includes investing in companies based on performance in three areas: environment, social, and governance (particularly in terms of how a company is run); and impact investing as intentionally investing to create a specific social or environmental impact. Impact Engine follows the impact investment approach and Jessica walked through the five main ways that investors can intentionally create impact via the 5P Framework. The 5Ps include: Product, Place, People, Process and Paradigm, and investors can invest with one or more of these in mind at any time.

Following the introductory remarks, the four speakers provided real world examples of the role the government plays in investing for impact.  Brian Echols, the Director of Impact Investments for the Illinois State Treasurer, brought up key questions that his team is focused on addressing: How do we create opportunities in low to moderate income communities? What role does the banking sector play in how we address systemic racism? He touched on these questions and more throughout his remarks.

City Treasurer Conyears-Erving explained that as Treasurer, she does not believe that it is enough to simply earn money for taxpayers. Instead, her team plays an active role in making people’s lives better. She explained that the government has to hold itself to a higher standard and aim for better outcomes beyond only focusing on the greatest possible financial return. Treasurer Conyears-Ervin explained that in 2020, she joined together with Illinois State Treasurer Michael Frerichs to create the Advancing Equity and Banking Commission (AEBC), a network of prominent banking institutions anchored in Illinois and committed to advancing equity and eliminating systemic racism in the banking industry though equitable hiring and lending and investment in Black neighborhoods.

State Treasurer Frerichs also explained that in his view, the key to growing our economy is to support local innovation and to do so equitably. He explained that his team has a job to invest while also having a responsibility to maintain the long term fiscal health of the state, while tending to the wellbeing of communities he represents, which includes economic security of millions of workers in the state of Illinois. Treasurer Frerichs explained that his team is laser-focused on innovating and adapting programs to meet the needs of local constituents while fulfilling their fiduciary responsibilities. He explained that his office integrates material ESG factors across all investment processes, from evaluation of individual issuers to the selection of fund managers. Both State Treasurer Frerichs and City Treasurer Conyears-Ervin stressed that they are focused on growing and investing in underserved communities as they believe there are great investment opportunities and opportunities to create jobs, grow businesses, and foster long term economic prosperity.

Brad McConnell, CEO of Allies for Community Business (A4CB), explained how his organization supports small businesses and thereby strengthens communities.  A4CB’s mission is to provide the capital, coaching, and connections that entrepreneurs need to grow great businesses, create jobs, and wealth in their communities. He explained that their team believes that investing in small businesses and working with entrepreneurs who are already embedded in their own communities is the most consistent and efficient way to create jobs and therefore opportunity and wealth in underserved communities.

Brian Echols explained that when his team thinks about the 5P framework, they invest in people, place and programs. Ultimately, their focus on these areas can often lead to a paradigm shift. Brian explained that in serving the various diverse metropolitan areas within Illinois, he recognizes that there are communities in each that lack investment. When thinking about place within the 5P Framework, it is important to recognize that resources flow differently in different parts of the state and his team must listen to what each individual community needs. Then, it is important for the government to leverage state resources to bring equity in how they invest, and to make investments that will improve individuals’ quality of life. Brian feels that his team’s responsibility as a governmental entity is to be the first to step out and support these communities in the hopes that private sector and philanthropy will follow suit and add to the investment into these communities.

The speakers brought to life the role that cities and governments play in investing in our communities. They explained the various different ways that impact investing can work but all stressed the importance of following through on our commitments, tracking the capital to understand where it ends up, measuring impact and ultimately being able to communicate that impact outcomes back to the community. 

In the Q&A, viewers asked what ordinary citizens can do to get involved in the government’s actions around impact investing. The panel’s recommendations included visiting 350.org which facilitates opportunities for residents to be involved with community organizations that are making a difference, or visiting Allies for Community Business at A4CB.org which offers various opportunities for individuals to support small business owners via coaching, skills development or providing grants or loans. Lastly, the Treasurers suggest reaching out to your elected officials with any ideas or recommendations to be more involved in this space.

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Find more sessions on the 2022 Chicago Impact Investing Showcase page.

Information presented in this document is intended solely for informational purposes and should not be interpreted as a recommendation or offer of securities or any other financial instrument. Unless otherwise indicated, the information contained herein is current as of the date of publication of this document and is believed to be reliable and has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but no representation or warranty is made, expressed or implied, with respect to the fairness, correctness, accuracy, reasonableness or completeness of the information and opinions.

Stellic: Why We Invested

By Tasha Seitz

Even before the pandemic, 1 in 3 students that started college in the US did not end up finishing their degree. As colleges and universities face decreasing enrollment, they are experiencing more financial pressure that is pushing them towards more cost-effective advising and a more student-centric approach. At most colleges and universities, advisors have a very high case load of students and have to rely on incumbent technology solutions that are often decades old with unfriendly and outdated user interfaces. As a result, advisors tend to focus on the students most proactive in reaching out to them and the students that have been flagged as most at-risk, leaving advisors without the time/capacity to serve the vast majority of students in the “silent middle.”

Solution

Stellic is an integrated planning and advising platform for college students to plan their courses to align with their degree requirements and career aspirations. The current product offers five modules: Pathways, Schedule, Audit, Advise and Report. Colleges and universities do not need to replace their existing systems, rather Stellic will integrate with existing student information systems and learning management systems while providing a more modern interface that connects existing data to students’ goals and degree requirements. Stellic’s “play-list” interface provides a significantly improved student experience.

In addition to providing much better tools for students, Stellic enables advisors to identify and assist students at risk of dropping out or graduating late and provide appropriate support and interventions to keep those students on track. For the large population of students in the “silent middle” that are not highly motivated, Stellic can ensure they have chosen a degree pathway and flag for both students and advisors any near term decisions regarding adding/dropping classes that might put their pathway at risk. By decreasing the administrative work that advisors need to do, Stellic enables advisors to be more effective and more efficient, lowering the overall cost of advising.

Because Stellic allows students to plan their future course load and encourages every student to commit to a pathway, universities can predict course demand and ensure that courses are offered when students need them in order to graduate.

Why We Invested

Stellic’s founder, Sabih Bin Wasi, is an impressive entrepreneur who was inspired to found the company based on his own frustrations in navigating the course planning process in higher ed. Sabih is deeply committed to solving this problem for students while providing value to colleges and universities. The company has impressive early traction with a diverse set of customers, including University of Chicago, Duke, Columbia, University of Minnesota, University of Oklahoma, Colorado College, and Cal State Northridge. Stellic has also seen inbound interest from international higher end institutions and successfully closed several international customers. The company has a very strong technical team through the founders’ relationship with the top technical university in Pakistan, and the product is built in a modular fashion to enable a “land and expand” sales strategy which is already showing success.

We really appreciate that Stellic can address both the needs of the sophisticated student that wants to do their own “what if” analysis as well as the needs of students that may not be as motivated to plan for the future and just need focus/direction to ensure they are on an efficient path towards graduation. We also believe there is a significant opportunity to reduce friction for students that have stopped out and are re-enrolling in a degree program to understand their most efficient and cost-effective path to achieve their personal and educational goals.

Impact

We expect Stellic to improve retention and college completion rates, reduce the total cost of getting a degree by ensuring all credit-hours help students achieve their graduation requirements, and reduce friction for transfer students and students that have stopped out and are re-enrolling in a degree program. In the longer term, the company’s vision is to enable students to plan effectively for their post-college career and track career outcomes.

The Helper Bees: Why We Invested

By Sophia Friedman

There are over 46M adults over age 65 living in the US today, and that number is expected to grow to almost 90M by 2050. The global population is aging at unprecedented rates -- older people make up an increasing share of the world’s population. This phenomenon is more pronounced in the United States than anywhere else in the world. The U.S. Census Bureau projects that older adults (people over 65) are expected to outnumber children under the age of 18 by 2034. Given the speed with which the US population is aging, compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic which has highlighted health risks associated with institutionalization, there are increasing pressures to enable adults to age in place and keep older adults out of senior living facilities. 

Solution

The Helper Bees (THB) partners with Long-Term Care Insurance carriers and Medicare Advantage health plans to provide quality care and appropriate tools to keep older adults independent, healthy and living at home longer. The Helper Bees strives to help older adults age in place successfully and does so by addressing the ‘social determinants of aging’: the conditions in the environments where people age that affect a wide range of health outcomes. The Helper Bees has developed a complete regulatory and administrative platform that blends claims processing, provider recruitment, and provider credentialing with the member-facing aging-in-place marketplace, aggregating all in-home care and support services into one platform. The platform’s direct impact is increased member satisfaction, improved health outcomes, and reduced claims costs and institutionalization rates.

Why We Invested

By 2040, 80 million Americans will be over the age of 65. 40 million individuals will need long-term care, and 90% of these will want to remain at home as they age. Today’s demographic shifts are changing consumer demands and placing unique pressures on the payors of long-term care. These payors, including Medicare Advantage and Long-Term Care Insurers, will need to focus on improving the social determinants of aging in order to improve care delivery to older adults. The Helper Bees addresses this market opportunity by providing a comprehensive aging-in-place platform to allow payors to tap into provider networks that enable older adults to age at home more seamlessly and successfully, thus resulting in better health outcomes at lower costs.

The Helper Bees aggregates various solutions related to the aging process into one to provide a single point of entry through which patients or caregivers can manage their own care. While point solutions exist to address various fragmented portions of the aging process, The Helper Bees is unique in that it consolidates these solutions into one platform that manages both the services themselves as well as claims processing, thus removing friction from the aging process. The Helper Bees’ team has proven themselves to be a strong leaders and well versed in understanding the unique payor environment related to Long-Term Care Insurance and Medicare Advantage. The team has a clear focus on improving the aging process for older adults and understands the importance of making healthcare more equitable and accessible to improve healthcare for all older adults regardless of socioeconomic class or demographics.

Impact

We believe The Helper Bees has the ability to make a positive impact by providing a solution that improves the aging process for older adults by focusing on the social determinants of aging. The Helper Bees has already demonstrated a meaningful reduction in the institutionalization of seniors – its Care Concierge product has resulted in a significant reduction in institutionalization to date. Further, The Helper Bees improves the process of aging in older adults in two ways:

1. By enabling individuals to more easily understand and take advantage of their supplemental benefits

2. By managing payment and reimbursement for these services, which individuals might not have the cash flow to support, therefore making these services more accessible to aging individuals

The Helper Bees reaches customers in all 50 US states of varying socioeconomic classes, races and ethnicities. The Helper Bees is in the process of expanding into Medicare Advantage, launching with its first customer in 2022. Medicare Advantage plans are often focused on chronically ill populations, which includes patients that are also eligible for Medicaid coverage – these patients are dual eligible, meaning the beneficiaries quality for both Medicare and Medicaid benefits. We anticipate dual eligible members will be a critical area of focus for The Helper Bees as the Company expands to partner with more Medicare Advantage customers. As the company continues to scale and expand into Medicare Advantage, we are excited by The Helper Bee’s opportunity to expand access to underserved populations and to improve the aging process for all.

Slang: Why We Invested

By Ander Iruretagoyena and Tasha Seitz

In today’s society there are over 59 zettabytes of information. Despite its impressive size, the fact that this global knowledge base is primarily encoded in English (i.e., 90%+ of scientific research is published in English) means that the over 6.6B non-English speakers have limited access to technical know-how, innovation, and new developments that occur worldwide. For expanding businesses, young graduates, scientists, researchers, and immigrants, English proficiency is an essential gateway to economic opportunity as it broadens horizons, lowers barriers, and speeds information exchange. As more and more multinational companies like Airbus, Samsung, Daimler-Chrysler, etc., mandate English as the common corporate language, the incentives to learn English have never been greater, and the demand for talent with English proficiency far outpaces supply.  However, access to acquiring professionally relevant English skills has been persistently limited by a lack of tailored, flexible and affordable upskilling resources.

In the United States, which has always been a polyglot nation, low levels of English proficiency are the most significant risk factor for underemployment. In a recent study examining the costs of untapped talent, it was found that within the immigrant population, those who reported speaking English “not well” or “not at all” were five times more likely to be in low-skilled jobs than those who speak English natively. As another data point, the 20 million Americans with limited English proficiency who comprise over 10% of the working age population in the US, earn 25-40% less than their English proficient counterparts.

Although there are many English-learning solutions on the market, traditional curricula cannot address the professional knowledge gap because they typically only teach conversational English or generic “business” English. 

Solution

Slang provides an adaptive, digital, ML-driven language-learning platform focused on professional English. This groundbreaking software tailors language learning to specific roles and professional vocabulary (e.g., accounting, maintenance, customer service) each of which may require a different level of emphasis on writing, speaking, reading and listening skills. Its innovative, learner-centric approach encompasses every domain of specialized English and provides meaningful access to global knowledge. For prices as low as $6/month, a Slang subscription makes specialized English much more accessible to students and workers in low- to middle-income categories. Organizations that might, in the past, have reserved English training for those in top management due to the high costs of domain-specific in-person classes and tutoring, can now expand a catalytic benefit to all individuals. The company is currently targeting Latin American markets, specifically Colombia, Brazil and Mexico, with plans to expand to the US market.

Why We Invested

English language learning is a $15B market in the Americas and $98B worldwide. In Slang, we saw a large opportunity, a company armed with a unique and defensible competitive advantage, and a mission-oriented team led by Diego Villegas. Diego is a non-native English speaker from Colombia. Prior to founding Slang, he was the founder and CEO of MASA, a Colombia-based technical services business that grew to 5,000 employees and $200M in revenues and was acquired by a European based-multinational. In the post-acquisition integration, Diego saw many of his employees get laid off because of their lack of English proficiency, which motivated him and Kamran Khan, an MIT-trained AI expert, to found Slang.

The focus on professional English differentiates Slang from the myriad of general language solutions in the market. Slang is architected and designed to rapidly deploy new knowledge domains and languages.  While the initial curriculum was designed to teach English to Spanish speakers, the company was, in a matter of weeks, able to quickly add support for Portuguese speakers in order to launch in the Brazilian market. Additionally, the team is focused on user experience and committed to positively impacting the economic well-being of workers, which has driven outsized NPS scores relative to industry averages. 

Impact

We believe that Slang has the ability to remove the barriers preventing many low-  moderate-income workers from accessing career opportunities within the knowledge economy. Slang’s professional English solution should drive increased upward mobility and higher employability, along with higher productivity and career-related knowledge in three main ways:

1. Expansion of access to knowledge: as workers’ English proficiency improves, they are able to access a wider range of high-quality content, including training and professional development courses, technical and reference manuals, and scientific research. 

2. Leveling the playing field for a global workforce: as English has become the lingua franca for business, improving the professional English skills of workers enables businesses of all sizes to participate more effectively in the global economy and drive better economic outcomes for workers, businesses, and countries.

3. Narrowing the knowledge gap between employee classes at the companies they serve: the affordability, flexibility, and specificity of Slang’s solution results in more training options even for blue-collar or nonexecutive roles, which traditionally don’t have access to English training.