Hosted by: Margaret Gifford
Abundance Capital Chief Investment & Compliance Officer and Co-Founder
Special Guest: Paul Clark
VentureSouth Managing Director
Abundance Capital is powered by donors, Abundance Angels, who recommend, fund, and refer investment opportunities. Donor-Advised Fund investors at Abundance are focused on impact investing, i.e., generating positive measurable social and environmental returns, with (ideally) a financial return in the private markets.
The challenge for Abundance Angels is often figuring out how to find new opportunities that qualify for impact, align with their intentions for the money, and set realistic expectations for the potential returns to their DAFs.
Recognizing what might be the right fit is a skill that private investors hone and that Abundance Angels can adapt to the DAF-based impact investing space.
In this one-hour session, Margaret Gifford of Abundance and Paul Clark of VentureSouth will lead participants in a lively, insights-driven discussion on how professional angels and impact investors source investments. Margaret and Paul will also discuss how Abundance Angels can successfully “swim alongside the sharks,” i.e., participate in traditional, conventional private market investment, potentially playing an outsized role in helping early-stage, innovative companies gain crucial support.
What We'll Cover
How professional angel investors find and evaluate opportunities. Early-stage investors are looking to pick long-term “winners,” but the space has unique challenges. How can an Abundance Angel figure out their goals for investing and then find companies that fit? Where can community partners help with the opportunity pipeline?
How is DAF investing different from conventional investing?
What investor choices are different when using a DAF to invest? How do Abundance Angels evaluate potential investments and make realistic assessments as to the likelihood of success?What about an exit?
What a credible, realistic repayment pathway looks like, what are some creative “friendly, patient” structures for repayment, and what signals red flags that an opportunity is not ready? (And why, if you love the company or idea, it could be okay to invest with a DAF anyway.)Once you’ve picked your company for DAF investment, what is the screening and qualification process?
What are the foundational elements every investee must have in place before Abundance can move forward? What is a reasonable timeline from screening to allocation? Why can working with a partner group like VentureSouth make the process faster?When do investors say“no”?
Professional investors and philanthropic investors see an enormous number of compelling pitches. When do they say “pass”? Why?
Who Should Attend
This is the first of a series of sessions on this topic. It is only open to Abundance Angels and Abundance Catalytic Fund advisors. The discussion will be non-technical and designed for all Abundance Angels.
About Paul Clark:
Paul Clark is a Managing Director of VentureSouth. At VentureSouth, Paul is responsible for creating new angel groups, identifying and evaluating investment opportunities, and working with entrepreneurs to develop their businesses and attract growth capital. He also serves as the General Partner of the six VentureSouth Angel Funds that co-invest alongside the active angel groups.
Prior to joining VentureSouth, Paul was a Senior Vice President of Mergers and Acquisitions at CertusBank in Greenville, part of a team focused on acquiring financial services companies in the southeastern US. Paul was previously a Principal at BC Partners, a leading large-cap private equity firm based in London and New York, with over $17 billion under management. At BC Partners, Paul was involved in investing over $1 billion in a variety of leading businesses across healthcare, financial services, manufacturing, and education on both sides of the Atlantic. He began his career at NM Rothschild & Sons, the City of London investment bank, where he specialized in mergers and acquisitions advisory and capital-raising services for healthcare companies in Europe.
About Margaret Gifford
Margaret Gifford is Co-Founder and Chief Investment & Compliance Officer of Abundance Capital. Over the course of her career, she has catalyzed +$30 million in private and public investment capital. Working alongside the entire team at Abundance, she has helped Abundance Angels screen and invest in dozens of mission-first investments and loans using their Donor-Advised Funds, raising the assets under management at Abundance from inception to +$10 million in place-based, primarily seed-stage private investments.
A builder of blended finance strategies and trust-based investor relationships, Margaret brings deep experience in investor relations from both global institutions with market capitalizations exceeding $330 billion, including Morgan Stanley, HP, and Ogilvy (WPP), and from early-stage entrepreneurial ecosystems across food, agriculture, and oceans. She is a founder of three social impact companies and is a frequent speaker on the opportunity to use innovative impact capital to build stronger communities. Her award-winning work as an impact ecosystem creator has been mentioned in The New York Times, Edible Manhattan, The Greenville News, the Raleigh News & Observer, the Upstate Business Journal, WUNC-TV/Radio, and many other publications, television outlets, and podcasts.