Impact built into investing, from strategy to exit.

I help fund managers, foundations and other impact investors design the strategies, investment processes and incentives that deliver more social and environmental impact from their capital.

Services

How I help

Impact investment strategy

Market research that pinpoints unmet needs, capital gaps and where your capital can be truly additive, turned into an impact thesis, investment criteria and target outcomes. Clients use the result to raise capital, align partners and guide investment decisions.

Impact management

Frameworks, processes and tools that build impact into every stage of the investment cycle, from sourcing and due diligence to portfolio management and exit. Work ranges from assessing current practice and preparing for independent verification to developing impact management plans and advising on implementation.

Financial product and fund design

Products and fund strategies that fill real gaps and stay competitive as markets change. Work includes testing demand with prospective borrowers and investors, shaping product features and blended capital structures, and proposing governance, grounded in pipeline and market analysis.

Impact incentives

Incentives define outcomes. Mechanisms that give impact goals real consequences for everyone involved: impact-linked carry for fund managers, impact targets in investment teams' performance frameworks, and outcome-linked pricing for investees, such as rebates for reaching quality jobs goals.

Ways to work together

Scoped to what you need, at the pace you need it.

Scoping sessions

One or two in-depth working sessions to understand the challenge, weigh the options and define the right approach. The fee is credited toward any follow-on project.

Focused projects

Phased engagements scoped around the decisions you need to make, with clear deliverables at each stage. Most run from a few weeks to a few months.

Ongoing advisor

Senior impact leadership a few days a month, as a fractional Chief Impact Officer or investment committee member, without a full-time hire.

Where a project calls for specialized expertise, I bring in trusted partners, from specialists in fund structuring, management and administration to investment experts in specific impact themes and sectors.

Selected clients and partners

Organizations I have worked with

  • Baillie Gifford
  • Global Impact Investing Network
  • MacArthur Foundation
  • Morgan Stanley
  • Kaiser Permanente
  • New Growth Innovation Network
  • Deutsche Bank
  • Kresge Foundation
  • UnitedHealthcare
  • Omidyar Network
  • Louisiana Clean Energy Fund
  • Justice Climate Fund
  • Aspen Institute
  • Blackstar Stability
  • PG&E

About

Where field-building research meets hands-on investing.

For nearly 20 years, my work has been guided by one goal: to grow impact investing and make it deliver more for people and the planet. I have pursued it on two fronts: research that shapes industry standards and practice, and making, managing and advising on investments across financial inclusion, community development, clean energy, quality jobs and affordable housing, from India and East Africa to Latin America and the US.

My advice is grounded in having done the work myself. I know which approaches hold up in practice, and which sound good in theory but break down once capital is on the line. I am as comfortable in the details of a term sheet as in a conversation about a firm's long-term vision, and I focus on connecting the two.

My work has spanned catalytic and market-rate capital. I am independent, with no assets under management and no product to sell, and based in Valencia, Spain.

Portrait of Daniel Brett
Broadstreet Impact Services · 2021–2026 SVP of Impact at an impact financial services company with over $2.5 billion in capital under management and administration. Built and led a six-person impact team, designed the firm's impact management approach and launched its impact advisory practice, serving fund managers, banks, community lenders and Louisiana's first green bank. Voting member of the investment committee.
Pacific Community Ventures · 2013–2021 Director of Impact Investing Research and Consulting. Led field-building research and advised foundations, fund managers and banks on impact strategy, management and evaluation.
Earlier Microfinance and clean energy investing in India and Tanzania, and a Fulbright Research Fellowship in environmental economics in Chile.
Education MBA, University of Oxford (Balliol College). BA in Economics and Environmental Science, Tufts University.

Selected publications

Decarbonizing the NMTC Industry Broadstreet Impact Services, 2024
Managing Negative Impact Pacific Community Ventures, 2022
The Impact Due Diligence Guide Pacific Community Ventures with the GIIN and the Impact Management Project, 2019
Impact Investing 2.0: The Way Forward Contributing author. Pacific Community Ventures, ImpactAssets and Duke University, 2013

Let's talk about what you're trying to solve.

Working with clients across US and European time zones.