Mission Markets featured on Ashoka's Blogs!

Ashoka, the global association of the world's leading social entrepreneurs, just published a great Mission Markets feature  on their Change InSight and US Programs blogs. Check it out!

"Markets on a Mission"

"Enter Mission Markets, a marketplace with its own mission: to make impact investing easier, more effective and more personal. Mission Markets provides infrastructure  and coherence to the fragmented industry of social and environmental capital exchange, and in the process they’re changing the way organizations and businesses in the field find capital."

You can read the entire article here. Stay tuned for more Mission Markets press updates!

-The Mission Markets Team

Join the SOCAP twitter chat!

This Wednesday, September 29, SocialFinance.ca and Twitter are co-hosting a live chat about SOCAP10 and aligning philanthropy and impact investing. This is a space that Mission Markets is very interested in. We encourage you to sign in and be a part of the discussion! For more information, click here.

- The Mission Markets Team

Mission Markets Earth Mentioned in Suite 101 Article

Check out this article from Suite 101 on ecosystem credit trading. CEO Michael Van Patten is quoted.

"Beyond Cap and Trade"

"Michael Van Patten, founder of Mission Markets Earth, believes that the voluntary market component will be key to the economic valuation of viable ecosystems in the long term. 'In addition to regulatory participants, we need nontraditional buyers who are not subject to purchase by regulations, the voluntary buyers,' he says, because compliance markets are not currently broad enough to counter our overall impact on the planet's resources. With sufficient vision, voluntary markets just might be."

 

Click here to read more! 

- The Mission Markets Team

Weekly News Update from the Mission Markets Team

We came across these articles while reading the industry news this week and thought that our readers would find them relevant.  We hope that you find them interesting and would love to hear your comments!

"Launch of Global Impact 50 Index Will Spur Increase in Investments with Social and Financial Return"

PRNewswire-USNewswire

Sept. 21, 2010

We at Mission Markets are excited about this new index for the top impact investment funds announced this week at the Clinton Global Initiative. It is an important step toward opening up the space to investors and their financial advisors.  

"Moody’s to Develop Social Performance Assessment of Microfinance Institutions"

Wall Street Journal MarketWatch

Sept. 22, 2010

Moody’s commitment to develop a quantitative, independent, and globally consistent standard to measure social performance in the microfinance industry is a major step forward in standardizing social metrics to enable impact investors to make more informed investment decisions and maximize social impact.

"Five Golden Rules for Attracting Impact Investors"

Triple Pundit and SOCAP10

Sept. 23, 2010

We liked this brief exercise taken on by Triple Pundit and SOCAP10 to answer the question, “What’s Next? How will social enterprise unlock the $120 billion market opportunity for impact investment?” We were also recently focused in the Triple Pundit blog. If you haven’t had the opportunity to check it out, you can read it here.

"College Showdown: Two Schools Face Off… To Invest Responsibly"

Venture Capital Dispatch (WSJ Blog)

Sept. 21, 2010

We are greatly encouraged by the fact that the younger generation is taking on an increasing role in the industry with student-managed social venture funds. It is good to see that the next generation of investors is already looking to maximize social impact alongside profits. 

Happy Reading!

-The Mission Markets Team

Mission Markets CEO Mike Van Patten quoted in Ecosystem Marketplace Article on Water Footprint Markets

“Can Footprinting Stomp out Water Waste?”

This article explores a “water footprinting” exercise jointly undertaken by the Coca-Cola Company and The Nature Conservancy (TNC). The goal was to determine the total amount of water used throughout the company’s orange juice supply chain, from the water pulled from the ground to grow the oranges to the water used in transporting the finished product.

Check Out the SOCAP Interactive Press Conference Video!

We are looking forward to the opportunity to showcase MissionMarkets.com and Mission Markets Earth to the Impact Investing community at SOCAP in just two weeks! Check out the interactive press conference recently posted on the SOCAP Blog for a preview and discussion of the event.

http://video.socialcapitalmarkets.net/

-The Mission Markets Team

Mission Markets Required Reading: Improving environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards among listed companies

“Sustainable Stock Exchanges: Improving ESG Standards among Listed Companies”

According to this briefing from the Experts in Responsible Investment Solutions (EIRIS), stock exchanges can play an important role in improving corporate transparency and performance on sustainability issues by enhancing corporate ESG disclosure and performance. This would involve applying ESG standards within IPO and ongoing listing rules, corporate governance codes, and offering ESG-related trading products.

Mike Van Patten Speaks at SJF Summit on the New Green Economy

Mission Markets CEO Mike Van Patten just returned from the SJF Summit on the New Green Economy in Durham, NC, where he spoke on the “Impact Investing: Emerging Capital Market Innovations” panel alongside Josh Cohen from City Light Capital and Beth Richardson from B Lab.  This year’s summit focused on accelerating growth and impact, and integrating job creation and economic development with Cleantech and Renewable energy investment. 

We look forward to many more speaking opportunities at other major conferences this year. Stay tuned for more updates!

- The Mission Markets Team

Mission Markets Featured in TriplePundit Blog

Check out this article on Mission Markets recently posted by TriplePundit, an innovative new-media company for the business community that cultivates awareness and understanding of the triple bottom line.

A Mission to Change Capital Markets: Mission Markets

“Have you ever wanted to invest in a company that focuses on the triple bottom line of people, planet and profits?  Or are you a triple bottom line based company that seeks capital?  It is difficult to find a marketplace where sustainability minded investors and businesses can meet. This is about to get easier.”

TriplePundit predicts that Mission Markets will fill an important void in the marketplace for sustainability. Click here to read more.

Happy reading!

-The Mission Markets Team

Slow Money encourages members to join Mission Markets

Our friends at Slow Money, an organization dedicated to building local and national networks and developing new financial products and services, are recommending the Mission Markets platform to their members.

Call to Slow Money Members: Join the Mission Markets Sustainability Exchange!

“Mission Markets aims to be the go-to platform for Slow Money members. Companies in the Slow Money alliance seeking to raise capital can sign up and list their company and their financial offering on the Mission Markets platform. Slow Money accredited investors can sign up as well, and search through these listed offerings to pursue due diligence and make an investment. Slow Money members Greenling Inc. and Farmland LP have been the first to hop on. Come join them! We charge no membership or listing fees.”

Click here to read more!

Mission Markets Inc.

Mission Markets operates a private investment exchange facilitating transactions within the social and environmental capital markets. The Mission Markets platform provides companies and organizations with access to funding and impact investors an efficient way to evaluate, invest in and monitor sustainable investment opportunities.

Mission Markets Required Reading: Green Development Mechanism

The GDM, or Green Development Mechanism, is developing a more standard method of valuing biodiversity such that it could be somewhat more fungible and allow for greater financial support and protection of critical habitat. The idea is to provide a unit of measure that is more akin to real estate than to a carbon credit, and apply various attributes that the specific protected area would protect.

Units exist for "Sustainable Agriculture", "Species and Habitat", "Sustainable Fish Harvesting", etc.

These units would be verified and monitored similar to how carbon projects are monitored, with long term management agreements.

To learn more go to: http://www.earthmind.net/bbb/gdm.htm

Think Big,
- The Mission Markets team

Mission Markets Inc.

Mission Markets operates a private investment exchange facilitating transactions within the social and environmental capital markets. The Mission Markets platform provides companies and organizations with access to funding and impact investors an efficient way to evaluate, invest in and monitor sustainable investment opportunities.

Mission Markets Required Reading: Financial Advisor article

Mission Markets' core goal is to expand the network of investors and companies/organizations that comprise the small but growing sector called 'impact investing". We are doing this by redefining return on investment to include social and environmental components, leveraging technology, and raising the credibility of impact investment opportunities. The article "Wealthy Attracted to Impact Investing" in Financial Advisor magazine discusses various actors in this emerging space and their work throughout the world.

Happy reading,
- The Mission Markets Team

SJF Summit on the New Green Economy

Mission Markets' CEO and Co-Founder, Mike Van Patten, will be speaking at the SJF event in Durham, NC on September 15.

The panel will focus on "new concepts and tools that are building the infrastructure for impact investing and facilitating investment in businesses generating social and environmental benefits."

Mike will sharing his thoughts on his work with Mission Markets and other innovations in the large and growing "green" impact investing sector.

- The Mission Markets Team

The Road To SOCAP

SOCAP is an annual gathering of impact investors and other like-minded social capitalists in San Francisco, and Mission Markets will be there in force this year!

Mission Markets is an official SOCAP sponsor and will have dedicated exhibition space in the conference hall. In addition, our CEO Mike Van Patten will be a featured speaker on the Social Capital Marketplace conference track.

SOCAP starts October 4th, and we have great expectations for the event. We will be talking more about SOCAP - and how Mission Markets will participate - in the coming weeks, so stay tuned!

- The Mission Markets Team

75 Members on Mission Markets!

MISSION MARKETS REGISTERED MEMBERS:

• TOTAL # ORGANIZATIONS SEEKING CAPITAL: 40
• TOTAL # INVESTORS: 35

TOTAL # OFFERINGS/DEALS:

• APPROVED: 7
• DRAFTS: 6

Mission Markets Inc.

Mission Markets operates a private investment exchange facilitating transactions within the social and environmental capital markets. The Mission Markets platform provides companies and organizations with access to funding, and impact investors an efficient way to evaluate, invest in, and monitor sustainable investment opportunities.

To register now, click HERE.

See you on the platform,

- The Mission Markets Team