Announcing 2013-2014 RSF Social Impact Fellows
SAN FRANCISCO, November 13, 2013 /3BL Media/ - RSF Social Finance is pleased to announce the 2013-2014 RSF Social Impact Fellows. This cohort marks RSF’s fourth year of the fellowship program.
The Social Impact Fellowship is designed to support the development of the next generation of inspiring leaders in the social finance field. RSF also seeks to bring a fresh perspective to the organization’s business development activities.
Fellows will work closely with RSF’s Lending Team to identify prospective borrowers, conduct due diligence, and structure commercial loans that will become part of RSF’s $75 million Social Enterprise Lending portfolio. The Fellowship is an extension of RSF’s mission to build the field of social finance. Working with graduate students across disciplines and geographic areas not only allows RSF to build a network of advocates for the industry, it also spreads the work of social finance into places where the concept of values-aligned investing is still very nascent.
Twenty-three fellows have completed the program since it began in 2010. Nearly half are now successfully working in the social finance field at organizations like Village Capital, Impact Assets, and The Bridgespan Group.
“I know first-hand, this is an incredibly valuable experience,” said Kate Danaher, Senior Lending Associate at RSF. Danaher was a part of the first cohort of Fellows and now runs the program. “These fellows have the opportunity to identify and engage with pioneering entrepreneurs who are at the forefront of solving pressing social and environmental problems.”
2013-2014 Regional Social Impact Fellows
Eriq Alexander is currently attending NYU Wagner's School of Public Service as a graduate student where he will be earning his MPA. His studies are primarily focused in public finance and social venture capitalism. In addition to supporting RSF as a Social Impact Fellow, and attending NYU part-time, Eriq currently works full-time as a Management Consultant for Cognizant where he assists financial institutions in improving day-to-day business operations. He received a BS in Economics from Penn State University.
Zoila Jennings is a 2014 MBA candidate at the Kellogg School of Management. Prior to Kellogg, she spent six years at JPMorgan Chase. She started a career as an analyst in the non-profit banking team and became a credit underwriter managing a portfolio of colleges, universities, healthcare systems, and social services located in the northeast. She then transitioned to be an originator in the New Markets Tax Credit team at JPMorgan Chase. Zoila earned a BS in Business/Managerial Economics from Fordham University.
Doug Seckinger is a MBA student at Berkeley’s Hass School of Business and is an advisor at Tides. Doug manages Tides’ largest client for independent foundation management services, Threshold Foundation, and supports a small portfolio of individual Donor Advised Fund (DAF) clients. Prior to joining Tides, Doug earned a Masters in Counseling Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) and a B.A. in Philosophy from the University of Notre Dame.
Richard Woodhull Woodhull is a second year MBA student at The George Washington University School of Business and has recent experience in impact investing with the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and Deutsche Bank. Prior to his MBA program, he was a program manager for an international development contractor and also has experience doing short-term work in private sector development for the World Bank and the United Nations Development Program. Richard earned a BA in international relations and economics at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.
About RSF Social Finance
Located in San Francisco, CA, RSF Social Finance (RSF) is a financial services organization dedicated to transforming the way the world works with money. Since 1984, the organization has made over $275 million in loans and $100 million in grants to non-profit and for-profit social enterprises working in the areas of Food & Agriculture, Education & the Arts, and Ecological Stewardship. RSF's lending capital comes primarily from 1,400 individuals who have invested $1,000 or more in the organization's Social Investment Fund. Investors earn a competitive return on their money comparable to a certificate of deposit while their funds are deployed to leading social enterprises. To learn more, visit www.rsfsocialfinance.org.
Contact
Kate Danaher, Senior Associate, Lending
kate.danaher@rsfsocialfinance.org
415.561.6181
