Working Together To Grow The Impact Tent In 2021

Photo by Hannah Jacobson on Unsplash

To our Clients and Friends of Align,
 
With 2020 nearly in the rear-view mirror, we find ourselves at Align reflecting not just on the many challenges we confronted together but also on the many silver linings that have inspired us during what was for everyone a very tough year. What I feel most is a deep sense of humility and gratitude to our clients and change agents in impact who have done such an amazing job staying focused and driving the changes we want to see.
 
You may have heard us speak before about how we will need to act on multiple levers at once to make our planet work better for all 7.8 billion people. Taking action is not always easy, especially at the present moment when the pandemic has made every challenge we face even more urgent.
 
Yet despite these odds in 2020 you took action – whether it was by raising your voice to speak out about an issue that mattered to you like electoral justice, or by investing in solutions that address some of our biggest challenges like climate change or food scarcity or gender inequity or social and racial injustice.
 
Even the smallest step forward matters. As our thought partners and collaborators at the Ms. Foundation like to say, “jump on in, the water’s not that cold.” So when we wrote to you earlier this year on ways that you could jump on in and take action to combat climate change or social and racial injustice - whether through investment, measuring your carbon footprint, or lending to a community development finance institution (CDFI) - our hope was to inspire you to take action.
 
In your so doing you became our inspiration for 2021 and beyond. We bore witness this year to so much collaboration and partnership amongst our clients and partners in impact, and we want to thank each of you for your resolve.
 
As we look ahead to 2021,  we are heartened and relieved to say that we have many reasons to be optimistic about our future together on this planet, from an economic perspective and with our opportunity to continue addressing our biggest challenges. Already in our sights is a post-COVID world, a new administration in Washington, and an impact investing sector that has moved from the fringes to the mainstream of investing.  
 
We’ve come a long way together. Just four years ago, only one in every five dollars was directed towards ESG or impact investing. Now it’s 1 in every 3. And it’s not just dollars moving. We’ve also seen a more than 50% uptick in shareholder support for ESG-related proxies. This means that more investors are using their voices and their votes to advance corporate action on key issues like climate change, pay equity, human rights, and many other important fronts.
 
This month’s Nasdaq announcement calling for increased diversity on the boards of listed companies signals that equality and inclusion is now a conversation all of Wall Street and Main Street has to have.
 
And with the new administration’s renewed focus on climate change -- starting with our rejoining the Paris accords, and immigration and social justice, there is good reason to believe that we are all finally rowing in the right direction.
 
But despite all of this progress, we aren’t doing enough fast enough. During the first two months of the pandemic, 41% of black owned businesses closed vs. 17% of white owned businesses. And in terms of the planet’s most urgent crisis – climate change -- we’re actually going backwards with respect to how much we’re investing in climate mitigation.
 
The fact is that we must act more quickly than ever before and in greater numbers to address our biggest social and environmental issues. The stakes are just too high.
 
In closing, we want to encourage everyone to take that first step. Every human being can make a difference. If you’re not involved, we urge you to just pick one thing and start there. You don’t have to do everything at once -- you have a finite amount of capital and a finite amount of time. Find your “why” and grab hold of it. And if you are already doing that one thing, think about how you can incorporate those values in other aspects of your life, your investments, and so on. For example, our colleague, Jesse Simmons, recently wrote about ways to align your philanthropic giving and investment portfolio to optimize your impact.
 
We have come so far and grappled with so much just in 2020 alone, so we need to make sure 2021 truly matters.
 
If 2020 was about each of us taking action, let’s dedicate ourselves in 2021 to finding innovative ways to grow our efforts together and bring more people into the impact tent - so we can make the system work for more people. An important part of our role at Align is to help each of you figure out where you want to go and how to get there. We look forward to rolling up our collective sleeves in January to explore the many specific ways you can turn your “why” into tangible actions that can make a difference.
 
We wish you and those close to you a very happy and healthy year-end and a fulfilling new year.
 
With gratitude and in partnership,
Jenn and the entire Align Team.