The Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta’s GoATL Fund, which provides flexible, cost-effective impact capital to support our community’s nonprofits and social enterprises, announced it has raised more than $1.4 million in donor co-investment this year, including $500,000 from The Kendeda Fund.
 
“We launched GoATL with $10 million in seed funding from the Community Foundation’s unrestricted funds,” said Mark Crosswell, managing director for social impact strategy, Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta. “We opened the fund to co-investment for our donors and other funders this year with a modest goal of securing $1 million. We exceeded that goal by nearly half, indicating that our individual, corporate and foundation donors are also interested in innovative ways to drive philanthropy through impact investing.” Crosswell added, “with the demand we’re experiencing for GoATL funding, we’ll need to raise over $5 million in additional donor capital in 2020.”
 
The first impact investing fund of its kind in the southeast, GoATL has committed more than $9 million to date for nonprofit organizations working to achieve sustainable social outcomes through affordable housing, quality education, access to healthy foods and health clinics and innovative funding and training for low-income entrepreneurs. Unlike traditional philanthropy that gives grants to nonprofits, GoATL’s investments provide loans that are expected to be paid back over time, thus expanding the pool of funds to be reinvested in an ongoing cycle. The loans also provide a source of capital that allows nonprofits and social-purpose for profits to leverage additional funding from the Community Foundation and other sources. On a global scale, impact investing of all types now represents nearly $14 trillion invested globally for social good.
 
“The Kendeda Fund has long been dedicated to innovative, community-driven solutions,” said Tene Traylor, who leads Kendeda’s Atlanta Equity grantmaking program. “For 10 years we were partners with the Community Foundation in Grants to Green, a program that boosted nonprofit organizations through eco-friendly upgrades at their facilities that resulted in millions in cost savings that could be diverted to programs and operational expenses. Today, through the GoATL Fund, we can broaden our scope of impact to address our region’s challenges in a different way.”
 
Since inception in January 2018, GoATL investments have already contributed to an estimated 170 multi-family affordable housing units, 120+ affordable single-family homes, 15 small business loans and a new school that will house 650 students at capacity. With over $9 million invested, our most recent commitments will support early childhood facilities, homeless transitioning into the workforce, transit-friendly affordable housing and STEAM education, all of which are located in Atlanta’s low-income communities.