Our Commitments/
Making opportunity universal and sustainable through

Innovative Finance

Addressing global development challenges by unlocking private capital for impact at scale
Overview

Bridging the Gap

The goal of the Foundation’s Innovative Finance team is to channel private capital towards deep social impact in line with the Foundation’s charitable purpose. Never before has the world faced a more critical gap in funding core development challenges, as captured by the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Climate Agreement.

Climate change, food insecurity, inequality, energy poverty, the threat of pandemics — all require significant funding that goes far beyond what philanthropy and government can provide. Through new partnerships and creative solutions, the Innovative Finance team catalyzes private capital at scale to bridge these gaps and address the world’s biggest challenges.

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  • $2.5trillion

    annual additional funding needed to achieve the UN’s SDGs

  • $212trillion

    estimated size of the global capital markets

  • 4/10households

    in the United States can’t cover an unexpected expense of just $400

Global
A Closer Look

Philanthropy as Catalyst

We aim to mobilize $20 billion in private capital by 2030 to address pressing priorities such as climate change, energy poverty, food insecurity, health and economic opportunity. The Foundation utilizes its own patient and flexible capital to seed new products, create new partnerships and drive capital towards projects with impact and scale.

OUR APPROACH TO FINANCE

We believe in transformative investments that can be replicated and built to scale to tackle the world’s largest problems. We do this by aggregating and deploying grants and catalytic capital into high impact solutions alongside our partners, leveraging the Foundation’s unique expertise to foster new opportunities for private sector investment.

Our Work and Impact

Rockefeller Foundation Impact Investment Management

The Foundation’s IIM platform is a central hub for aggregating and deploying like-minded funding through catalytic investments and grants into high-impact projects and solutions. IIM is focused on three core activities:

  • $95million

    deployed across

  • 72

    investments across 28 countries

  • $600million

    in private sector capital mobilized

outline of a paper and a clock in light blue.

Capital Investment Management – IIM serves as an aggregator of catalytic funding to facilitate impact at scale

outline of people with their heads in a circle and all connected with lines in light blue.

Intermediary Incubation – IIM works with established asset managers to co-create investment vehicles at scale.

outline of a hand holding a money bag in light blue.

Deal Sourcing and Co-Investment – IIM facilitates co-investment from its network into high impact, scaled investment opportunities.

graphic of a chart of IIM's Investment Philosophy that reads Seeds innovation to accelerate private sector investment, ensures total impact integrity, and enable scale and replicability.

  • Report

    The Innovative Finance Revolution: Private Capital for the Public Good (Foreign Affairs Special Edition)

    Download PDF