Making impact investing easy, rewarding, and possible for everyone

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:

1.

Make a grant from your donor-advised fund, foundation, or your own funds, recommending an impact investment

2.

Realize Impact does the diligence, reviews the terms, and makes the debt, equity or revenue-based investment.

3.

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

$500 for investments
of $10,000 or more.

$0

* There is no fee for investments under $10,000, but the investment returns will not be re-donated.

Philanthropic Investment Grant

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.

Latest stories

#34, #35, #36 = $234,500 of investments October

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Three more impact investments in October 2021: TechSoup, Beta Boom, and PlusMedia. TechSoup TechSoup provides discounts for nonprofits to technology solutions. The company ran a debt crowdfunding campaign for expansion of their service, and Realize Impact helped finish off that fundraising with a $75,000 investment. Beta Boom Beta Boom invests in under-the-radar founders building the future for...

#33 – The University Growth Fund

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It’s not a class. It’s not a club. It’s not a case study. The University Growth Fund is a full-fledged investment firm, investing real money into companies, and entirely accountable to our investors. As students, they work extra hard to make the best investment decisions possible. Realize Impact invested in this fund not only because it helps teach venture capital to the next generation, but also...

Decarbon8: Time to Transform Transportation

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Please meet the 2021 Decarbon8-US investees! We invite investors, donors of all sizes and types, and climate champions to join us in accelerating the climatetech revolution, to hopefully realize outsized gains and impact along the way. C-Motive Disruptive ultra-high efficiency and high torque motors for e-mobility, industry, renewables generation and more. Why we’re...

$1.5 million for the Truss Fund

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The Truss Fund logo

Realize Impact added another $92,000 investment to the Truss Fund today. This fund makes loans to social enterprises addressing poverty in the developing world, specifically for pandemic-mitigation. This additional funding came from three donor/investors, bringing the total number of donor/investors recommending this investment to 23. The only more popular investment is the Decarbon-8 fund...

The Third Repayment, Aquacycle

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Aquacycle logo

Back in 2020 four donor/investors used then then-new philanthropic investment service to recommend $177,800 of investment into Aquacycle, San Diego company with a novel technology for cleaning wastewater. Aquacycl® has developed the BioElectrochemical Treatment Technology (BETT®). The BETT® systems select and control natural bacteria for the purpose of accelerating wastewater treatment rates...

Over $6 million and 120 Investor/Donors

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Realize Impact logo

For years Realize Impact searched for a service that would make a difference in impact investing. The new philanthropic investing service is that calling. Since launching in February 2020 eighteen months ago, over 120 investor/donors have moved over $6 million into mission-driven for-profit organizations. 31 investments so far, many summarized on our blog. Why is this working so well? Simplicity...

Six new investments

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The feeling after making an impact investment

July has been a busy month for philanthropic investments. We’ve invested over a half million dollars into six companies and funds: MedMountain Ventures – The world needs healthcare innovation, yet most healthcare companies never make it to market. Our niche is finding the best companies and helping them find their way. Apis & Heritage – Helping Workers of Color Own Their...

Ethical Apparel Africa

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Ethical Apparel (header)

At the end of 2020 with the recommendation of one couple, Realize Impact made a $50,000 loan to Ethical Apparel Africa, an apparel sourcing company that provides expert technical guidance, independent quality control, sourcing, logistics, and compliance assurance in West Africa. We didn’t blog about this loan at the time as $50,000 was all the company needed to deal with a pandemic-related...

Investment #25 – Truss Fund II

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Truss Fund makes loans to social enterprises addressing poverty in the developing world.  The fund focuses exclusively on graduates of the GSBI Accelerator, a program of Miller Center at Santa Clara University. In just the past thirty days Truss Fund has approved a loan to Doselva, a spice business connecting Nicaraguan smallholder farmers to export markets, a loan to All Across Africa...

Investment #24 – Gigawatt Global

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Gigawatt Global logo

Gigawatt Global is a Jerusalem-based, Dutch-registered company backed by American investors creating a platform to provide renewable electricity to some of the most challenging countries in Africa — geared to offering strong potential returns on investment while supporting humanitarian and social causes including clean energy, women’s empowerment, health, education, access to clean...