Ideagen Global - Catalyze Magazine, January 2023

E X C E R P T S F R O M G R A H A M M A C M I L L A N
P R E S I D E N T A T V I S A F O U N D A T I O N
Equitable was a 200,000,000 5-year commitment to enable 140 million dollars of private
market impact investments alongside about 60 million dollars of grant-making to support
the development and growth of more diverse small businesses. And what we've learned
along the way is the tremendous demand for capital, of course, and I know you can
appreciate that, but it's more than just the capital that's needed by these small businesses.
It's really enabling the partners that deploy that capital, whether they be grants or
investments, to look at communities that have historically been missed, which is to say,
gender, and underrepresented communities.
To give you an example, in the United States, there are roughly 70 trillion dollars of
wealth and financial assets, and only 1 to 3% of that capital is controlled by women or
underrepresented communities. We know that as investors and other partners put money
into communities, they do so in communities they understand. And so our objective now,
and that it has really been focusing and will really bring this to 2023 and beyond, is to
continue to deploy a hundred percent of ours into funds and other intermediaries that are
controlled by the communities that we are focused on. So that is to say gender diverse
fund investors. And to date, we've done about 125 million in private market investments
across asset classes, which is to say, venture capital, private equity, and private debt.
We have all the tools necessary to meet particular needs and circumstances. And where we
can, we also deploy grant resources to support that work, so it gives us a pretty unique
value proposition. And for 2023, we anticipate deploying an additional 40 million of
investments, globally.
Because as I said before, we have a global footprint, and it will continue to be in funds that
represent communities that we care about. And it will be a mix of early first-time fund
managers, and some more established partners, as part of a prudent financial investment.
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