This is the third post of a series discussing the role of the ESG and impact investing field in advancing racial equity by increasing access to capital and measuring impact.

In the previous posts of this series, we discussed the racial wealth gap and the impact that historically low access to capital has had on communities of color. We also discussed what firms in the ESG and impact investing space are doing to advance racial equity. These strategies run the gamut from creating dedicated funds designed to reach Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) entrepreneurs, such as Reinventure Capital; to employing screening methods for companies with strong diversity, equity, and inclusion policies, like the Minority Empowerment ETF cocreated by Impact Shares and the NAACP (in ESG terms, a positive screen to increase exposure); to reimagining the process of due diligence with a racial equity lens, such as the Due Diligence 2.0 Commitment.

This is the second in a series on advancing racial equity through access to capital and impact measurement. The author thanks Catherine Dun Rappaport of BlueHub Capital and Caitlin Rosser of Calvert Impact Capital for their contributions to this article, as well as their time, expertise, and devotion to this work.

This is the first in a series of three posts on advancing racial equity through access to capital and impact measurement. In this post, we’ll talk about ESG and impact investing and highlight organizations in the space. Later, we’ll discuss the specific strategies organizations use to measure impact and the opportunities to build upon this work in the Biden administration’s Build Back Better plan.