Welcome again to the Heartland E-Journal.  The E-Journal is a regular digital newsletter of Heartland Capital Strategies, which fosters a "Community of Practice" for Economic Impact Investments.  The  Heartland website ( www.heartlandnetwork.org) incorporates the best features of Heartland's responsible investment road shows, along with other exciting efforts to rebuild cities and industries. The E-Journal  provides regular updates about the Heartland Network's road show to rebuild cities and revitalize our industrial commons; it dishes up news, opinion and think pieces and success stories related to responsible investment (RI). 

Obama Administration Joins Heartland Forum on Economic Impact Investing, by Marco Trbovich.   Marco's blog describes the recent colorful and information-rich Heartland Forum in Washington, D.C., led by lively speakers such as White House Innovation Office Director, Jonathan Greenblatt and Oregon Governor's Office/West Coast Infrastructure Guru Dan Carol; and many others.  It also provides some insight into the value of economic impact investing.

Heartland D.C. Forum Highlights Potential of Workers Savings For Building Sustainable Communities, by Marco Trbovich.  Marco does the deep dive with John Knott, President of CityCraft, and Patrick Doherty, Director of the New America Foundation's Smart Strategy Initiative, and other participants; in a panel that provided a smart intersection between responsibly rebuilding living cities and revitalizing our industrial commons.

 The New Heartland Profile: Edward Smith, CEO, ULLICO, Inc., by Marco Trbovich.  Ed Smith is helping take ULLICO, with it's new responsible infrastructure program and renewed J for Jobs Program, to new heights in rebuilding cities and creating good jobs.

From Impact Investments to Economic Impact Investments, from Annie Molhotra, part of the "Heartland Series on Responsible Investment."  Do you know the difference between responsible investments and impact investments?  Annie helps us understand the alphabet soup of progressive investment alternatives, and describes the evolution from ETI to ESG and Heartland's new framework: economic impact investing (think big!). 

The AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust (HIT) Providing $89 Million of Pension Capital as Early Investor to Help in Sandy Re-building   The AFL-CIO HIT made one of the largest private investments post-Sandy to repair damage from the hurricane at  Amalgamated Warbasse Houses, one of New York's largest union-sponsored housing cooperatives located in Brooklyn's Brighton-Coney Island community.  The loan allows the co-op to replace the electrical distribution system that was destroyed by flooding as well as refinance existing debt at significant cost savings that will help keep the cooperative affordable for its residents.

Buyout Fund KPS Draws High Demand, a re-print from the Wall Street Journal, 4/15/2013 on the KPS Capital Partners Fund's successful $3.2 billion closing for Special Situations Fund III (the previous two funds have saved 15,000-20,000 primarily good union jobs and had major impacts on durably restructuring major industries).  KPS has long been one of the friends of Heartland.

Why Bill Clinton Came to 'Talk Windows' at the AFL-CIO, by Jackie Tortora, reprinted from the AFL-CIO Blog, which describes the wonderful ribbon-cutting ceremony to retrofit the AFL-CIO Headquarters building, a stone's throw from the White House.

President Obama's Special Assistant and Director of the Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation, Jonathan Greenblatt, joined capital stewards, pension fund managers and other investors at the Heartland Economic Impact Investment Forum: Washington, D.C., the sixth of such forums since 2012.  Sponsored by Heartland Capital Strategies (HCS), the forum focused on the need to rebuild the built environment of our cities and to revitalize the nation's industrial commons.

In addition to providing market-competitive returns and minimizing risk, "Eco-

Jonathan Greenblatt, Director of Office of Social Innovation, joins Heartland Forum

nomic Impact Investments" result in community prosperity through the growth of good jobs, innovative enterprises and a more resilient built environment.  Heartland fosters a "Community of Practice" for Eco-nomic Impact Investments (EII), and this network has  invested success-fully for decades in Washington, D.C. and around the country.  Read More>>>

Pension Funds Encouraged to Invest in Community Prosperity

At Heartland Capital Strategies' recent Economic Impact Forum in Washington, D.C.,  CityCraft Venturespresented evidence of the firm's success in revitalizing communities by investing in a holistic approach to building community wealth,  and asserted that scaling up such a strategy is essential for the survival of union pension funds and the sustainability of the U.S. economy.

As the leadoff speaker on the panel Imagining the Livable City, CityCraft president John L. Knott, Jr. strongly encouraged pension fund managers participating in the forum to stop "exporting capital globally" and to focus instead on becoming leading investors in "restoring the long-term economic, social and environmental health of our cities."  

  Read More>>>

Since early 2011, Ed Smith has been Chief Executive Officer of  ULLICO Inc. and The Union Labor Life Insurance Company, which provides insurance and financial solutions for labor unions, union employers, union benefit funds and union members.  Ed went to work as a laborer at age 13, was a business manager for a Laborers' union local and pension trustee by age 21.  He has been a member of the Laborers' International Union of North America (LIUNA) for 45 years.  ULLICO is a sponsor of Heartland Capital Strategies.  Read More>>>