Published: 12 Feb 2026

Dear IFI Community

It’s easy to feel saturated right now. There is a particular kind of fatigue that comes from living inside constant “breaking news.” The scroll never ends. The outrage rotates. The stakes always feel high.

 

And yet, in the same stream of news, you’ll find something else: species returning to habitats after a century. Rivers recovering after decades of damage. Billions mobilized toward public African infrastructure. None of this cancels out the complexity of the moment, but it does remind us that progress is rarely accidental. We are seeing meaningful signals that people - through coordinated effort and courageous design - are shifting seemingly immovable systems.

  

That’s true in innovative finance too. Alongside familiar models and entrenched logics, there are practitioners redesigning governance; LPs rethinking their role as capital allocators; foundations experimenting with new capital stacks and rates of deployment; and experts questioning the status quo. This month’s Community Showcase is about that work - the collective experimentation shaping how capital evolves in practice.

 

Read on for a snapshot of what the IFI community has created this month ↓

 

1. Catalytic Capital & Investor Practice: How capital is measured, structured, and deployed for systems-level impact.

2. Ownership, Stewardship & Governance: Rethinking who owns, who decides, and how structure preserves purpose.

3. LP Strategy, Private Wealth & Market Infrastructure: How allocators and ecosystem actors are reshaping the capital stack.

4. Research, Barriers & Field-Building Opportunities: Surfacing structural friction and an opportunity to mobilise capital to address it.

MacArthur Foundation - C3 Field Partnerships IMM Report (2025)
MacArthur’s latest report evaluates the impact measurement and management (IMM) approaches across its Catalytic Capital Consortium (C3) Field Partnerships portfolio. The report explores how catalytic capital can be assessed not just by financial mobilization, but by systems-level effects - surfacing lessons on what it takes to deploy flexible capital with accountability. For those grappling with how to measure catalytic impact beyond simple leverage ratios, this is a substantive contribution to the field’s evolving rigor.

🔗 Full report here

ImpactAssets - The ImpactAssets Handbook for Investors
A practical guide for investors navigating the mechanics of impact-aligned capital allocation. The handbook synthesizes approaches, structures, and lessons for those building portfolios with intentionality.

🔗 Full handbook here

2. Ownership, Stewardship & Governance

Purpose - Steward-Ownership Book & Commentary
Purpose continues advancing the steward-ownership conversation, most recently spotlighting the latest edition of their introductory book and expanding accessible materials that explore governance beyond extractive ownership models. In parallel, they’ve published timely reflections - from Hollywood acquisitions to political misunderstandings about ownership - that make complex governance concepts legible to broader audiences. Together, these pieces help translate structural ownership design into cultural and public discourse.

🔗 Warner/Netflix commentary
🔗 Ownership & political rhetoric piece

In Captains and Navigators, Delta Fund leaders explore how the traditional wealth advisory model can unintentionally constrain capital from aligning more deeply with values and impact. The piece examines structural incentives, power dynamics, and embedded assumptions within advisory systems - and raises important questions about who ultimately shapes capital allocation decisions. For those thinking about the role of intermediaries in impact investing, this is a sharp and timely reflection.

🔗 Full piece here

3. LP Strategy, Private Wealth & Market Infrastructure

ImpactAlpha - “Ten Ways LPs Are Going Beyond the Check”
In a challenging fundraising environment, this piece explores how limited partners are stepping up with non-financial support - from strategic introductions to structuring flexibility - to help impact managers navigate prolonged capital droughts. It’s a useful reminder that alignment isn’t just about capital allocation, but about the relational and structural ecosystem around fund managers.

🔗 Full article here

Coalition for Impact - Mapping the Private Wealth System
A systems-level map of how private wealth flows and where leverage points exist for catalytic intervention. A useful resource for those thinking about how to influence capital at the architecture level.

🔗 Full report here

Project Frame (Prime Coalition) Featured in New Private Markets Glossary
Project Frame - one of Prime’s nonprofit knowledge-sharing initiatives - was recently highlighted as an example of a “private market framework” in New Private Markets’ glossary. The glossary itself offers a growing taxonomy of emerging terms shaping the private markets landscape, many of which intersect closely with IFI conversations around structure, governance, and catalytic capital.

🔗 Find the glossary here

Bard College Research Project - Cross-Border Impact Investing Barriers
A project team at Bard College is researching impediments impact investors face when considering investments outside their country of residence - particularly foreign exchange and structural barriers to non-domestic deployment. The findings aim to inform the development of local capital frameworks designed to overcome these friction points. The team invites responses to a short survey and will share results with the IFI community in the coming months.

🔗 Survey link

Catalytic Capital Consortium - 2026 Grants: Advancing Supply & Deployment
The Catalytic Capital Consortium has launched its 2026 grant round, supporting initiatives that expand the supply and effective deployment of catalytic capital. This funding opportunity seeks to advance practical mechanisms, field infrastructure, and deployment models that increase the availability and sophistication of catalytic capital globally.

🔗 Learn more and apply here

Thank you for continuing to share your thinking, your experiments, and your openness with the community. The more we illuminate what’s being tested and built across the ecosystem, the more the field can mature - together.

Chat soon,

Aunnie & The IFI Team

P.S. If you missed our January Showcase mailer, you can find the open link here