Something extraordinary happened on August 29 and 30 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. We gathered over 500 participants from 27 countries and 200+ speakers for Latimpacto’s second annual conference, Impact Minds: Standing Together. Latimpacto is a young network of actors of impact social investment. It was officially born during the COVID-19 pandemic. Its second annual conference (the first was in Cartagena in 2022) achieved twice as many participants.

The conference demonstrated in terms of numbers and quality of presentations, announcements of new investments, and funds that challenges can be overcome and exceed expectations. For the creation of this conference, there were more than 180 proposals for dialogues, panels, presentations, and participations that went through a curatorial process to be able to present the challenges and solutions that are taking place in the Latin American region. It was clear that the meeting showed disruptive ideas, valuable perspectives, and a spirit of camaraderie and desire for contribution that I had not felt in other conferences. The opportunity to create meaningful connections for impact investments to generate the most significant social and environmental transformation in the Latin American and Caribbean region was always present.

The dialogue began with the welcome of the Executive Director of Latimpacto, Carolina Suarez, who, recognizing the more than 250 Brazilian participants and their hospitality, gave us welcoming remarks. Then we moved on to the first panel of the conference, called Leveraging Resources to Mobilize More Capital towards Impact, with the participation of Naina S. Batra from AVPN, Frank Awani from AVP, Sophie Faujoru from EVPA, Carolina Suarez from Latimapcto and Allie Hollowel from the Global Alliance of Impact Networks GAIN.

These five sister networks from Asia, Africa, Europe, and Latin America regions discussed collaboration through GAIN and how to leverage resources to mobilize more capital for impact and resources of each of the regions. For example, 34% of Europe’s impact investments are made outside Europe. They spoke of the importance of learning from each other to invest catalytically and increase the number of investment opportunities in the region to flow more impact resources. They especially mentioned how this vision and understanding of the capital continuum is breaking paradigms of involvement and collaborative work that in other sectors are not so easy. They refer to civil society, government, companies, and foundations collaborating as a team to solve existing problems. This collaboration clarifies the preponderant role of companies in solving the community issues in which they operate and, at the same time, being more accepted by society and the local community because governments are being overwhelmed by needs.

It was said that it is clear that current philanthropic models are not sufficient to solve social problems. Therefore, taking riskier and greater change actions is necessary to accelerate the improvement of society and the environment. That is why these alliances, such as GAIN, are ways to make philanthropy outside of the traditional way, producing a faster and more agile change by fostering “Togetherness” as a global community and focalized support based on experience and evidence sharing.

The second plenary was a presentation by the Development Banks of Latin America (CAF) with Sergio Diaz Granado and Aloizio Marcadante, President of BINDES. Both spoke of the significant challenges the region will have, “the region contributes only with 8% of global emissions, but it will be the region that will suffer the most from the effects of climate change”. They discussed three significant challenges in the region:

1. Inequality: Heredity tendency limits social mobility (it takes up to 11 generations to have a poor person out of poverty cycles in terms of social mobility).
2. Economic Growth: The centralization tendency in small territories generates low productivity in the periphery.
3. Climate Change: Effects will be bolder and harsher on LATAM, mainly on highly marginalized communities.

With that said the banks have been in preparation to work together with the countries to pull together funds and bring more funds to prepare the region for the climate change effects. However, they are clear that even with all the bank resources, the work will need to be collaborative.

One of the most attained concurrent talks was “People at the Center of Impact.” Bruno Ziller from Institute Cactus talked about mental health and why the increasing complexity of changes and structural issues such as inequality, lack of productivity, fragile social cohesion, climate change, education, and learning crisis during and after COVID-19 are creating opportunities by prioritizing mental health policy and awareness to increment project returns and impact.

Tom Mendes at the Brazilian Identities Institute mentioned the necessity to create and open spaces for indigenous, deprived, and black people representing their communities, that represents diversity, with the clear intentionality to seek for them, including and supporting them in their work.”

Sebastian Frias from the Kellogg Foundation related to the time in 2008 when the Kellogg Foundation decided to become an antiracist foundation without knowing what this meant. But as a founder of initiatives and programs, this meant a significant paradigm shift and created awareness that such a privilege could be a leverage and tool for impact, not as a source of guilt or comfort zone.

Thiago Souza from the BMW Foundation and regional representative in Brazil addressed how post-capitalism philanthropy not only focuses on fixing the externalities of capital creation but is now strengthening individuals and communities. He mentions that dignity emerges from the self, but power comes from the community, and it is needed to foster collaborative relationships and spaces that build trust.

The next day, a very insightful conversation between Paula Moreno from Manos Visibles and Skoll Foundation CEO Don Gips about the critical role of private and public investors in creating impact in the region. The principal takeaways were:

Social innovators shift power dynamics and build answers.

Investing boldly with urgency in local leadership funders can make exponential power and impact.

They need to work closely with the community and with strength.

Gips specifically said that some new young leaders are gaining space in government positions and the civil society needs to work closely with them to sustain the positive changes these new government leaderships are obtaining. When the government opens the space, the funders must pack behind and walk closely by taking risks that government officials would not accept.

Doug also mentioned the importance that the private sector should not only focus on shareholder value but also reduce the externalities produced by its activities.

At the end of the morning, we testify to the announcement by Cesar Buenadicha, Chief Discovery Officer of the IDB LAB, Andreas Mota from Coca-Cola Latina America, and Juan David Ferreira, Latimpacto’s programs director of the Green Catalytic Fund within Latimpacto. This fund is a collaboration among the IDB Lab and Coca-Cola Latina America. The fund has three components: Financing, community, and impact of early-stage solutions related to decarbonization and the search for carbon neutrality (net zero), with particular attention to Amazonia but with regional scope. They expect that from every dollar in the fund, three other dollars will be invested in climate funds within the region, promoting social climate entrepreneurs’ existence. The fund will focus on creating socio-ecosystems that support the communities’ quality of life.

The closing conference was done by Natalye Paquin, Chief Operating Officer of the Rockefeller Foundation, and Lorena Gille, CEO of FEMSA Foundation.

Paquin gave great importance to focusing on building trust as the currency that “really” moves civilization even more than money, power, and influence because impact is a team-playing game and happens by the proximity to the people and context of the region. She said that Latimpacto had been the vehicle for the Rockefeller Foundation to be more present in LATAM, and we should seek to have many actors of this type. She finally invited us to do our today’s work as the most important work of our life.

Mrs. Gille mentioned that as a collective movement, we recognize ourselves as focusing on investing with impact to create environmental, replicable, and sustainable social and climate solutions, believing in catalytic capital and that there is no investment or minor player in the capital continuum. We are all fundamental to reaching solutions with a shared vision and coordinated action to contribute to the prosperity of the region where we live and grow.

Lorena announced the third Impact Minds: Standing Together conference to be held in Oaxaca, Mexico, from September 9 to 11, 2024.

Agustin Landa is the founder of Landa Zambrano Asociados and Alliance magazine’s Regional Representative in Latin America.