Stephen Vicinelli and Catherine Dun Rappaport Join Social Finance to Develop a One-Stop Solution for Impact-First Investing

Together, Vicinelli and Dun Rappaport bring nearly 60 years of experience in finance and impact assessment to Social Finance’s impact investments team.

Boston—Today, Social Finance, the national impact finance and advisory nonprofit, announced that Stephen Vicinelli and Catherine Dun Rappaport have joined its leadership team. In response to the rapid growth of the impact investing market, Vicinelli and Dun Rappaport are developing a fund focused entirely on impact-first investments that aim to deliver measurable positive social and/or environmental outcomes. Launching later this year, Social Finance anticipates that this impact-first fund will be an open-ended fund of funds providing a one-stop solution for investors seeking access to a diversified portfolio of catalytic, impact-first investments in a variety of asset classes and across a range of impact themes, including climate, affordable housing, economic mobility, financial inclusion, health, and small business ownership. Vicinelli and Dun Rappaport have developed a detailed, repeatable investment process that includes both financial and impact due diligence, as well as a robust framework for impact measurement and management.

As Vice President, Impact Investments at Social Finance, Stephen Vicinelli leads the design and implementation of impact-first investment solutions to help impact investors, donor-advised fund (DAF) sponsors, and DAF donors mobilize passive charitable capital into catalytic, impact-first investments at scale. Before Social Finance, Vicinelli served as Deputy Chief Investment Officer for TIFF Investment Management, a provider of investment solutions to the nonprofit community. He also spent 15 years leading TIFF’s private investment program, raising private funds on behalf of nonprofit investors. Prior to TIFF, Stephen spent ten years at Morgan Stanley, where he held positions in the firm’s mergers and acquisitions, technology corporate finance, and realty advisory practices. For nine of those years he was based in London, where he had significant exposure to the global private equity community as an advisor, underwriter, and co-investor.

In her role as Vice President, Impact Advisory, Catherine Dun Rappaport leads efforts to ensure that Social Finance’s fund delivers meaningful, measurable, positive impact on people and planet, and that its impact diligence, measurement, and management processes are both rigorous and practical. Prior to Social Finance, Dun Rappaport was Senior Vice President of Learning and Impact Management at BlueHub Capital, a national community development financial institution (CDFI), where she spearheaded its impact measurement and management function and led efforts to assess and increase the impact of BlueHub’s investments. She also serves as a Senior Advisor to Impact Frontiers—a collaborative focused on understanding and increasing the impact of mission-driven investments—and the Greater Boston Evaluation Network.

“Building on our 12-year track record in developing impact-first strategies, we are excited to respond to the market’s demand for a one-stop solution for the impact-first end of the impact investing spectrum. We’re fortunate to recruit Stephen and Catherine to drive these exciting efforts,” Social Finance CEO and Co-Founder Tracy Palandjian said.

“Our primary objective is to mobilize passive, charitable capital into catalytic impact-first investments. If we can serve as an effective conduit between investors seeking impactful investments and talented fund managers working to generate highly impactful outcomes, then our Fund will be achieving its ambitious mission,” Vicinelli said.

“Social Finance is a trailblazer in creating investment strategies that support meaningful positive outcomes,” Dun Rappaport said. “I’m excited to help our philanthropic partners and impact investors deploy capital in ways that support economic, racial, and environmental justice.”

Learn more about Vicinelli and Dun Rappaport’s experiences in this Q&A.

Social Finance has pioneered a set of innovative outcomes-based funding strategies in the U.S., including the Social Impact Bond and the Career Impact Bond. The organization’s economic mobility portfolio includes the investment program funded by the Google Career Certificates Fund, the UP Fund, place-based Pay It Forward Funds, and the Dreamers Graduate Loan Fund. Social Finance has a team of more than 120 people with offices in Austin, Boston, New York, San Francisco, and Washington, DC.

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About Social Finance
Social Finance is a national impact finance and advisory nonprofit. We work with the public, private, and social sectors to create partnerships and investments that measurably improve lives. Since our founding in 2011, we have mobilized approximately $350 million in new investments designed to help people and communities realize improved outcomes in education, economic mobility, health, and housing. Learn more at socialfinance.org.

Contact
Carrie Benjamin, Director of Media & Communications
(857) 340-6064
cbenjamin@socialfinance.org

All information is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute, and should not be construed or used as an offer to sell, or a solicitation of any offer to buy, interest or shares in the fund described above. No offer or solicitation may be made prior to the delivery offering documents, which will contain additional information including disclosures relating to risk factors and conflicts of interest. If you have any questions about this press release or the information on it, please contact Social Finance at info@socialfinance.org.