Transcriber: Pooi Ling Ng Reviewer: Robert Tucker
I'm here to talk about money.
About making money more.
Five years ago,
when I would log into my brokerage account to review my financial statements,
there was a colorful dashboard with plus and minus signs.
A plus sign ...
when a plus sign appeared, I'd find myself smiling.
A plus sign meant my stocks went up.
When a minus sign appeared, however, I hoped that the damage wasn't too bad.
A minus sign meant my stocks went down.
Back then, I began to realize
my wellness became tied to whether I saw plus or minus signs.
My wellness became tied to whether prices went up or down.
But I wasn't feeling well on another level,
a deeper level.
I wasn't feeling fulfilled or happy in a sustained way.
I knew I wanted to do more than just make more money;
I wanted to make money more:
more impactful, more responsible, more disruptive, more transformative.
At that time, I didn't have a term for what I was trying to do.
But today, this would be called impact investing.
I recall calling my financial representative to ask,
"Is there any place on your colorful dashboard
where I can see how my investments impact people and the planet?"
(Laughter)
You know it's coming.
"Huh?" he said.
"So, is there any metric for doing good?" I asked.
"I'm sorry, what was that?"
Brokerage firms have hundreds of tools to help investors,
some with savvy names, StreetSmart Edge, instinctive dashboard,
as if I'm playing some survivor game.
Yet, none of these tools helped me understand
if my investments helped people create thriving communities,
where people share tools, tasks, ideas, and stories,
or if people are educated about greener lifestyles.
None of them.
I, I live in community.
I share my resources with people.
I plant my own food.
I invite my neighbors over for dinner.
The way I was living in the world
was so different [to] the way my money was acting in the world.
I felt separated from my investments.
I saw money as the very currency that could create change,
yet I didn't know where my money was, or what it was doing.
Do you ...
really know who and what is impacted by your investments?
Probably not.
If you do, you're the very few.
But here's a secret.
Most people don't know.
To me, that was a problem.
Fast forward five years.
I'm kneeling in a garden bed, sharing gardening tips:
plant basil and tomato together to deal with pests,
how to apply compost to a garden bed,
to a dozen residents in an apartment community
outside of Salt Lake City.
As I rose from the garden bed,
Leola, an elderly resident, holding a garden shovel in one hand,
pointed to her apartment in the distance
to thank me for helping her come out from beyond those walls.
She used to stay in her apartment alone, watching TV, feeling disconnected.
She lost her impulse to come outside.
But now, she has a garden.
She told me she visits the garden several times a day,
in part, because the plants need her,
but, in part, because she needs the plants.
And, in part, it is her way to connect to her neighbors in the garden.
She has visited, she has made friends, with Dustin, his wife, his two kids,
along with numerous other families who work in the garden together.
The story of Leola feeling connected
and participating in the thriving community
is an example of impact investing,
of making money more,
more impactful on people's lives, of uniting the head and the heart.
Old-school thinking has us believe
that the head makes the money, and the heart gives it away.
Brokerage firms, for instance, have donor-advised funds,
where people,
no matter how much damage
their investments have done to people and the planet,
can donate to nonprofits of their choice.
I'm talking about a different model.
I believe we can do well by doing good.
And, I believe business is a tremendous potential force
for positive social change.
And it isn't something we can do; it is something we have to do.
And it's something we are doing.
Leola,
Leola is part of urban village,
which is an outgrowth of my journey to sync my value with my money.
A journey that shortly began
after my conversation with my financial representative,
five years ago.
I believe each of us can make money more.
I believe each of us can use our resources, and our money,
and our investments,
to make the world a better place,
a more compassionate, a kinder, more regenerative place.
Here's how I am making money more.
Currently, I am a partner and director of impact
at OpenPath Investments,
a social impact real estate company
with a portfolio value in excess of 285 million dollars.
At OpenPath, our aim is to turn ordinary apartment complexes
into thriving communities.
Our portfolio consists of 13 apartment communities
with over 2,500 units
in multiple metro areas:
Portland; Salt Lake City; Las Vegas; Colorado Springs; Mesa, Arizona;
Phoenix, Arizona; and Plano, Texas;
and more to come.
We started urban village in 2010
because the residents that lived in our communities
shared walls, but didn't share lives.
But isolation is not just a problem in apartment communities folks.
Oh no, it's cultural-wide.
The very social fabric of our human connection
has been fractured,
impoverishing our lives and our communities.
More and more of us connect to the outside world
through screens and gadgets,
yet feel more and more disconnected
[from] the communities we actually live in.
Here's our philosophy for urban village.
It's based on a simple idea
that we,
all of us,
are more powerful as a village than we are as an individual.
Urban village aims to help residents open their doors,
connect to their neighbors,
and work on projects together.
Urban village aims to green the urban landscape
through permaculture, gardens,
and environmentally sound interior rehabs.
But the most beautiful part of urban village,
at least for me,
is watching people come together.
Urban village residents work together to create community gardens;
develop compost programs;
install dog parks;
share pet sitting, childcare, tasks and tools;
teach yoga classes, dance classes, and cooking classes;
and soon,
we will help residents introduce beehives and chickens to their community backyards.
I see lots of smiles for beehives and chickens.
Maybe that might be my big idea,
but,
as people connect and share tools and tasks, stories and ideas,
these social connections inevitably unleash
the full collective power of a community.
Magic happens.
Robert Putnam, author of "Bowling Alone," calls this social capital.
And social capital and urban village looks like this:
Residents informally keep an eye on each other's children
as children play outside.
That's social capital in action.
Residents prepare food for their neighbors who are feeling ill.
That's social capital in action.
Tony, a 35-year-old resident
of an urban village community in Mesa, Arizona,
had recently been laid off as electrician and unable to find work.
He was feeling lonely, isolated,
and suffered from a lack of meaningful social connection.
At an urban village event, just two weeks after he had been laid off,
Tony met Victor, who lived across the way,
and shared an opportunity for an electrician job
at a warehouse down the street.
That's social capital in action.
It's these tiny, micro acts of communion:
they are so tiny, but so damn important,
that build social capital,
that work together to create a village.
As people come together and talk to each other,
neighborhoods self-organize to meet the needs of the collective.
Here's what we are discovering with urban village.
When residents feel a meaningful social support network,
the benefits flow through and to investors.
It's pretty simple.
Here's why.
Residents who like where they live
stay longer,
take care of the property, and of each other.
When this happens, everybody wins:
residents and investors win.
Today, approximately 4,000 people a year
choose to live in urban village communities.
Yet, with 37 million Americans living in apartments,
this is just the beginning for urban village.
But the story I share with you today
is much more than helping people connect in apartment communities.
Urban village is just one of endless possibilities
to make money more, more impactful on people's lives.
It's more about what we, as investors, are going to do.
Yeah, what we are going to do.
When it comes to investing, we need to broaden and come together,
to broaden our identity from a "me" identity,
where we just think about ourselves,
to a "we" identity,
where we think about how all are impacted.
We need a shift to impact investing.
We need to invest in people and the planet
because people and the planet matter.
When we invest in people and the planet,
we lean forward to clasp the hands of our neighbors in need.
Children, children feel safe enough to sing aloud and say "hello" to all,
the soil is left richer today than yesterday.
The next time you review your financial statements,
ask yourself:
Who, and what, is being impacted by your investments.
We can do this.
Ask yourself:
Am I making money more?
Thank you, everybody.
(Applause)