Creative Capital for Social Innovation: Bridging the gap between grant-making and impact investing

Social enterprises are often caught between philanthropy constrained by funder-defined focus areas and venture-like impact investing that prioritizes market returns. Neither framework is built for what they need. Echoing Green and Angel City Capital built the Signal Fund — blending a nonprofit’s mission and charitability with an investment firm’s experience deploying creative capital vehicles to create pathways to scale grants cannot. The fund architects go inside the model: how roles are delineated, what instruments are deployed, and what three years of results look like. For funders, nonprofit leads, impact investors, and operators asking how to capitalize mission-driven work as funding uncertainty intensifies and the sector must evolve.