Impact investing is complicated. How do you balance impact and investment returns, local vs. global impact, 17 Sustainable Development Goals, debt, equity, and revenue-sharing? All while deciding whether to invest from your savings, your family office, or your foundation or donor-advised fund?
Realize Impact is here to help make impact investing easy. We know how to make impact investments, create impact, and then harvest the investment returns. What we are looking for are your recommendations for impactful investments, and the capital to make those investments.
All it takes are three simple steps:
Make a grant from your donor-advised fund, foundation, or your own funds, recommending an impact investment
Realize Impact does the diligence, reviews the terms, and makes the debt, equity or revenue-based investment.
We donate 99% of the investment returns to your recommended DAF, foundation or other 501(c)(3) nonprofit.
Or in other words, you do the easy parts and we’ll do the complicated parts. When you find a good impact investment, tell us about it. We’ll spread the word so that others can join in too, helping catalyze your capital into yet more impact. Later, if the investment turns out to be fruitful, we’ll put almost all of those returns into a donor-advised fund, foundation, or charity, so it can do even more good for the world,–or give us a new suggestion and we’ll invest that capital again and again and again.
We do this for one low flat fee:
$500 for investments
of $10,000 or more.
* There is no fee for investments under $10,000, but the investment returns will not be re-donated.
See the details on the Philanthropic Investment Grant or fill out our PHIG Recommendation form to get started.
See the FAQ to answer the most frequently asked questions about this service.
And yes, the service is as simple as it sounds, by design.
Realize Impact is pleased to announce its $2.5M investment in SolarAPP Foundation. Solar Automated Permitted Portal (SolarAPP+) is an online instant permitting software for eligible rooftop residential solar and storage projects, designed to help code authorities achieve safe, code compliant rooftop solar and storage installations. This platform will reduce wait times and lower installation costs...
We launched our philanthropic investment program in February 2020 and by the end of 2023 averaged over $1 million per month in donations. Since the launch, we’ve received more than $50 million in total, accounting for more than 800 transactions. Please help us continue this growth. Make a philanthropic investment today. In what? Check our our blog for our investments and check out The Liist...
Ownify is a fractional homeownership program for first-time homebuyers. Instead of using a mortgage to purchase a home, participants in Ownify (“Ownis”) purchase incremental equity with each monthly payment and grow their ownership stake in their home. Once an Owni has a 10% equity stake, they can qualify for a traditional mortgage. We love this approach because it improves access to home...
Matriark Foods makes healthy vegetable pantry staples that eliminate food waste by upcycling farm surplus and fresh-cut remnants. Their products reduce greenhouse gasses, provide more revenue for farmers, and create greater access to healthy food. Anna Hammond, founder and CEO of Matriark Foods Thirty-seven percent of all food grown in the U.S. is wasted, a third of which is edible and fresh...
Now recruiting for our Board of Directors and our Investment Committee! Interested in one or both of these roles with a dynamic, high-growth nonprofit in the impact investing arena? Learn more and apply here: Board of Directors Investment Committee Despite our audacious use of AI-generated imagery in this post, rest assured our Board and IC meetings are unlikely to include potted plants or take...
Application deadline: Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis, final deadline is April 19 Location: Remote, with preference for Seattle metro area Start Date: Q2 2024 Total compensation including benefits (see below for details): $66,850-$87,650 Benefits: Flexible PTO, 401k company match, Health Reimbursement Arrangement, Section 127 Qualified Educational Assistance Program (student loan...
Realize Impact launched the philanthropic investment grants service in February 2020 and by the end of 2023 averaged over $1 million per month in donations, more than $37 million in total since launch, processing more than 400 individual donations. Please help us continue this growth. Make a philanthropic investment today. In what? Check our our blog for our investments and check out The Liist...
Realize Impact partnered with WRI in 2022 to launch the TerraFund, investing in for-profit companies restoring land in Africa. In 2023, we’ve created Africa Trees Ltd. as a for-profit company to organize those investments. The initial cohort of investments have been made. Over a dozen companies based in Kenya, DRC, Rwanda, Burundi, and Ghana: Emfed Farms is an agribusiness that makes cocoa...
If you are over age 70½ (or know someone who is) you can reduce your taxes, even if you don’t itemize deductions on your tax return, by making a Qualified Charitable Distribution (QCD) from your IRA. How does this work?These transfers, known as qualified charitable distributions or QCDs, offer eligible older Americans a great way to easily give to charity before the end of the year...
In 2002, pregnant with their first child, Jason & Kim Graham-Nye learned 300,000 disposable diapers are thrown away every minute around the world! Before they new it, dirty diapers; the waste they create; and how to fix them, became their life’s work. gDiapers launched the “hybrid diaper” in 2005 with the world’s first Cradle to Cradle Certified disposable insert that tucked inside soft...