Puppet Masters Part 1: Who [Really] Controls The News?
Weaponizing Philanthropy... Also Known As Impact Investing
Socially responsible investing. ESG investing. Blended value. Mission-driven investing. Impact investing.
It goes by many names but it is all the same principle. Many individuals and organizations who have the same or complimentary goals come together and focus their investments and money into certain organizations with the expectation that they will realize their goals. It is powerful. It is why we are seeing certain issues being pushed. And it is all the rage amongst billionaires and elitists.
Impact investments are investments made with the intention to generate positive, measurable social and environmental impact alongside a financial return. Impact investments can be made in both emerging and developed markets, and target a range of returns from below market to market rate, depending on investors' strategic goals.
Global Impact Investing Network: What You Need to Know about Impact Investing
Before 2007, the idea behind impact investing was a pipe dream. That is until Antony Bugg-Levine joined The Rockefeller Foundation.
In the book Impact Investing, he and his co-author Jed Emerson describe what they saw at the time: the need to set the rules and create a worldwide playing field, which would necessitate transformation across capital markets, performance measurement, and public policy. It was clear that no individual, however charismatic, would be able to create these transformations alone.
As they wrote, “It will be an especially tricky transition since it requires a focus on the 'we' of sustained social change, not just the 'me' of social entrepreneurship… A single-minded focus on individuals obscures the crucial role collaboration and coordination need to play in impact investing’s next phase. Impact investing will take off when its pioneers and newcomers collaborate effectively, building the infrastructure that will enable the next wave of talent and capital to join the field… In [this] emerging phase, the impact investing industry suffers from fragmentation with an increasingly crowded field of subscale players unable to rise above the noise.”
The Rockefeller Foundation: Building a Backbone to Accelerate Impact Investing
It is at this point a network was built. Antony Bugg-Levine pitched his idea to the Rockefeller Foundation and the Board of Directors jumped onboard. The initial goals in building this network was simple.
To develop a clear vision for the field that reflected the views of the network’s current participants.
To establish a new nonprofit that could house the network’s backbone functions.
In 2009, the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) was founded.
The Foundation opted to be the lead funder, recruiting several other foundations as fellow supporters, and have the document branded by Monitor Institute. In the case of the nonprofit, the Foundation also chose not to use the Rockefeller name, branding it the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN). The GIIN launched in 2009, nearly a year after the 2008 convening, with the goal of advancing the same four workstreams that the convening participants agreed to pursue.
The Rockefeller Foundation: Building a Backbone to Accelerate Impact Investing
What were those four workstreams?
Create of a global network of leading impact investors.
Develop a standardized framework for assessing social and environmental impact.
Start an impact investing bank.
Develop a working group of investors focused on sustainable agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa.
Keep in mind that these are the Rockefeller Foundation's goals. It isn't the goal of every impact investing organization.
The Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) closed its doors in 2013. However, the framework is still used and has expanded using ESG scores. Their impact investing may have shut down. But their network is still very much alive.
Looking back, Bugg-Levine believes that timing and persistence were key to the Foundation’s successful cultivation of the network. “We hit a nerve at the right point, and were tireless in pursuing it,” he said. “It has been incredibly rewarding to promote this idea. I remember how excited we were when an obscure blogger first used the term “impact investing,” and now look how far we’ve come, with President Obama and the Pope having discussed it in the same week.”
The Rockefeller Foundation: Building a Backbone to Accelerate Impact Investing
As of 2022, the estimated size of the worldwide impact investing market is $ 1.164 trillion USD.
Popular examples of impact investing include:
The Gates Foundation
The Soros Economic Development Fund
The Ford Foundation
Arabella Advisors
It’s important to note that an impact investment is not an act of charity. Impact investors are always hoping to turn a solid profit and even beat the market. It’s just that they have additional goals that transcend the pursuit of maximum returns on investment.
If impact investing isn’t charity, then how can it be called philanthropy?
Impact investing usually refers to singular organizations with many investors behind them and funding them.
What does this look like when multiple funds or organizations come together to focus on one single goal? What happens when the grants given aren't overly large single donations but come in the form of many donations from many organizations? Can this be considered a form of impact investing?
Can a single individual take over an entire industry this way?
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation on Tuesday launched a $150 million initiative—in collaboration with The Rockefeller Foundation and Omidyar Network—to fund the riskiest and typically least financially rewarding slice of impact investments.
A goal of the Catalytic Capital Consortium, as the initiative is called, is to unlock billions, or even trillions, of further investment into solutions that achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs, by providing investment capital “that is patient, risk-tolerant, concessionary, and flexible,” unlike conventional capital that aims for market-rate returns.
Internet Archive: Penta: MacArthur Foundation Joins Rockefeller, Omidyar to Unlock Impact Financing
Blue Haven Initiative, Ford Foundation, MacArthur Foundation and Omidyar Network "announced the launch of the Tipping Point Fund ('TPF'), a first-of-its-kind donor collaborative geared towards scaling the practice of impact investing. With $12.5 million in initial funding, the TPF will make strategic grants to support the creation and development of critical market infrastructure that is necessary to maintain the continued growth—and more importantly, the integrity—of the impact investing market."
For months, Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes has been warning about the dangers of corporate consolidation, even advocating for a break-up of the social-media giant where he started his career.
Hughes and the organization he co-chairs, the Economic Security Project, announced Thursday the launch of a $10 million “anti-monopoly fund.” Backed by a series of high-profile philanthropies, including the George Soros-financed Open Society Foundations and the Omidyar Network, created by the founder of eBay, the new effort aims to shine a spotlight on competition and “move the issue from the margins to the mainstream,” Hughes said in an interview.
Is this the building blocks for creating a worldwide agenda based on the decisions of a few unelected individuals? Isn't that the very definition for what a cabal is? How about the Deep State? People who are not public figures using their vast fortunes at the expense of the rest of the world.
Is this the weaponization of charity and philanthropy? These are vehicles which were meant to do great good for those who needed it which are instead being twisted to push extreme ideas and social issues. What happens when large amounts of money, not hundreds or thousands, but millions and billions, are used to push these fringe ideas?
Who We Help
Arabella partners with people and groups working to achieve philanthropic goals through grantmaking, advocacy, impact investing, and more.
I think we are seeing the effects of exactly that today. Defunded police, immigration, CRT, the trans agenda, extreme philosophies revolving around LGBT, ESG scores, social credit, 15 minute cities, COVID vaccines, abortion, and more.
A left-wing dark money juggernaut hauled in a jaw-dropping $1.6 billion in cash from anonymous donors to bankroll groups and causes in 2020, tax forms reveal.
The forms further show that the secret money network, managed by Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm Arabella Advisors, pushed an astounding $896 million in contributions and grants to liberal groups last year.
The Arabella-managed network has solidified how Democrats quietly benefit from massive amounts of anonymous donations as they simultaneously rail against the influence of dark money in the political sphere.
The network's web of groups sits under four Arabella-managed nonprofits: the New Venture Fund, Sixteen Thirty Fund, Windward Fund and Hopewell Fund.
The Capital Research Center found the four funds have implemented more than 300 "pop-up" projects to boost Democratic causes and attack Republican initiatives since their inception.
The groups push efforts ranging from health care to climate initiatives, work on state-level advocacy and ballot measures, and spent big last year to defeat former President Trump.
"In response to the urgent global and nationwide challenges of 2020, we were proud to work on all major issues in philanthropy last year, including addressing climate change, election security, racial justice, youth empowerment and education, and global health and international development," Lee Bodner, president of the New Venture Fund, told Fox News.
A host of influential Democratic donors use the Arabella-managed funds as a conduit to funnel cash to projects, including billionaires George Soros and Hansjorg Wyss, a Swiss national who said in 2014 he did not hold American citizenship.
Are our countries run by We The People still? Are elected officials making decisions based off of those who reside in their districts? Or is government policy being strong-armed by a super elite class of the insanely rich? Is a small fraction of the world's population who is so out of touch with society and reality that they couldn't tell you the price for a gallon of milk making decisions which affect how we live?
A left-leaning, secret-money group doled out a whopping $410 million in 2020, aiding Democratic efforts to unseat then-President Donald Trump and win back control of the Senate.
The group, the Sixteen Thirty Fund, financed attack ads against Trump and vulnerable Republican senators and funded massive get-out-the-vote and issue advocacy campaigns amid the coronavirus pandemic. It exploded in size during the Trump administration, going from a few tens of millions of dollars per year to raising and spending hundreds of millions.
The Sixteen Thirty Fund’s multi-million dollar grants singlehandedly powered some other organizations on the left, and it also incubated other groups, as a “fiscal sponsor,” that fought against Trump’s Supreme Court nominees, backed liberal ballot measures and policy proposals in different states and organized opposition to Republican tax and health care policies.
Its massive 2020 fundraising and spending illustrates the extent to which the left embraced the use of “dark money” to fight for its causes in recent years.
Politico: Liberal ‘Dark-Money’ Behemoth Funneled More Than $400M in 2020
And when they don't get their way, do they invest even more money into "grassroots organizations" who engage in "civic action" and "peaceful protests"? What might that look like?
What lengths will they go to keep someone silent, to manipulate the information being put out, to hide the truth, and control the narrative?
To be continued…
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I don’t care what it’s called. It sure as hell sounds a lot like bribery.!!🤬 And “OUR” Best Interests are never in mind.!! All of this “Dark Money” needs to be stopped ASAP