Arkansas Impact
Investing

Infusing impact principles into private capital markets by educating, activating, and connecting students to impact investors in Arkansas

Investors, educators, and students addressing environmental and social problems.

Our goal is to infuse private capital markets in Arkansas with impact principles and practices by educating, activating, and connecting students and Impact Investors in Arkansas. We'll organize capital flows towards impact and facilitate investment impact and investment discovery in Arkansas via student-driven industry outreach. And we'll highlight and expand a core of place-based, access to capital related, and thematic impact investment.





Guiding Principles

  • Impact is profitable: a good investment can do good in the world.
  • Modern firms and investors in all sectors in the public, private, and philanthropic spaces increasingly expect deployed capital to reflect ethics and values.
  • Impact is the future of finance.
  • Arkansas Impact Investing at the UofA should itself be an impact investment, a force multiplier for social and environmental impact in Arkansas.

 

Programmatic Objectives

  • Facilitate impact investment deal flow in Arkansas
  • Thought leadership and research in impact investment in Arkansas
  • Curricular innovations and content production for student, practitioner, and public audiences

An ideal investment would consider environmental stewardship and innovation in an investment that grows Arkansas communities and provides access to capital and opportunity for historically excluded or underfunded groups.

 

Notes and Updates

September 21, 2022 (1pm via Zoom): Early Stage Impact Focus

Discussion of recent and upcoming social and environmental investments, including purpose-driven companies and investment in underfunded founders. The first hour of the meeting will be a general discussion/presentation format, and for those who want to stick around for the investor roundtable meetings, we will add an additional 30 minutes at the end to cover any existing or new deals that members would like to discuss.


October 19* 2022:  In-Person @ Bentonville Collaborative- Supporting and Investing in Social Enterprises

We will host an in-person mixer and discussion on Supporting and Investing in Social Enterprises, at the Collaborative in Bentonville. Exact dates and times will be announced soon. The discussion will be in partnership with Arkansas Global Changemakers and the P4 initiative https://globalchangemakers.uark.edu/initiatives. 

The P4 initiative was discussed on a recent Points of Departure podcast episode.

November 16, 2022 (1pm via Zoom): Affordable Housing Focus

We are hosting a discussion on affordable housing and ways to engage the University and our students and faculty in the important work being done in the community around this critical topic. This is envisioned as a cross-disciplinary effort to support and amplify regional efforts in this area.




In the News

investing and growth

UA group focuses on impact investing

The finance department of the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas recently launched an initiative that’s expected to accelerate impact investing in Arkansas.

January 26, 2022


Working Group

An engaged group self-identified impact investors in Arkansas are collaborating with University of Arkansas faculty and students to share ideas, perform diligence, and assemble capital stacks to address problems in the state.

The Working Group currently meets monthly for an hour via Zoom, with occasional in-person networking events. If you are interested in participating or would like to know more, please contact us at arimpact@uark.edu

Get Involved

To donate to our impact investing efforts, or to sign up for our public mailing list for events and investment news, or to discuss joining the Working Group, contact arimpact@uark.edu.





Arkansas Impact Investing Team