Our impact continues even after our portfolio partners repay their loans.
Since our founding in 1995, Calvert Impact Capital has been lending to communities traditionally excluded from the financial system. By addressing these structural inequities in the financial system over the last 25 years, we have in effect supported the development of entire markets and ecosystems – like US Community Development through our long-term support of Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) or the Microfinance market through our lending to microfinance pioneers. We continue to identify market-building opportunities and demonstrate the financial viability of impactful markets, models, sectors, and geographies that the capital markets perceive as "too risky."
Our "build-grow-sustain" portfolio strategy works to change this perception by empowering our borrowers to build and grow their portfolios, organizational strength, and impact they have on the ground, and over time sustain a track record of performance, repayment, and positive returns. With this track record of success, our borrowers can prove their business models and attract more capital, even if that means they do not need our financing anymore.
While these borrowers may no longer be in our portfolio, we are always looking for ways to continue to support them, and for now we celebrate their successes and the insights we have gleaned through years (or often decades) of working with them.
Below is a selection of these success stories
Capturing lessons learned from our portfolio is also a critical way that we align our impact management practices with the Operating Principles for Impact Management, specifically Principles 7 (conducting exits considering the effect on sustained impact) and 8 (improving decision making based on lessons learned). For more information on our impact management practice, see our latest Impact Disclosure.
