Join the Impact Cherub Club September Meeting

I’m not a financial advisor; nothing I write in Superpowers for Good should be considered investment advice. You should seek appropriate counsel before making investment decisions.

As we gear up for the 1:00 PM Eastern, September 18, meeting of the Impact Cherub Club, we invite you to join us. The club is an informal gathering of friends who meet up to review impact investments everyone is eligible to make and virtually anyone can afford. We share responsibility for completing basic due diligence before making investments. No one is required to invest.

There are no dues or fees to participate, and I don’t touch the money. When members invest, they do so directly for their own accounts. We benefit from new members only by the fresh perspectives they bring. Please join us!

Next Meeting—September 19, at 1:00 PM Eastern

At our next meeting on September 19, at 1:00 PM Eastern/10:00 AM Pacific, consistent with our plans for future sessions, the agenda will have three items:

• Diligence Reports

• Education Moment

• Preliminary Consideration of New Candidate Investments

I’ll review those items in reverse order.

New Company Consideration

After some preliminary screening, I’ve shared some candidate offerings with the members of the club to choose which we’ll review this month. Members chose the following:

Boaz Bikes

Boaz Bikes provides scooters in urban communities just like Bird and Lime, their global competitors. Boaz Bikes differentiates itself by striving to work more cooperatively with municipalities, deploying safer vehicles complete with turn signals and rear view mirrors, and by serving neighborhoods the big providers ignore. The company is raising on Wefunder.

ByteNite

ByteNite is deploying technology that allows any computer, even your cell phone, to be part of a massive supercomputer that is faster than Amazon Web Services computers. ByteNite charges those who need the computer for the privilege and then shares that revenue with folks who make their devices available for the purpose, keeping 30 percent of the revenue for itself. The theory is that this model will ultimately be better for the environment as it will reduce the number of computers required in the world to do all of the world’s computing. The company is raising via Wefunder.

Education Moment

At the Impact Cherub Club meeting, I’ll take a few minutes to talk about the importance of making money in order to have impact. It is tempting for generous people to think of small investments like donations. That isn’t crazy. Putting $100 into a deal that may not pay off for a decade and is illiquid until then isn’t exactly a conservative investment strategy. Still, if you invest with an eye on financial returns, you’re more likely to invest in companies that are successful at both revenue generation and impact. You’re also more likely to earn a return that enables you to do more impact investing.

Diligence Reports

We’ll begin with the due diligence reports from the Impact Cherub Club members who volunteered to research the companies after we briefly learned a bit about them last month. After hearing the members’ reports, we’ll vote to determine whether or not to recommend investment in the companies. The decision will be made available to everyone who registers to attend, including those who don’t make it. Register here.

Here are the companies we’ll learn more about this month:

The Coven

The Coven is led by a team of women working to build a WeWork-style, scalable shared office space business. Their offering says, “We create the conditions for physical and psychological safety to flourish, increasing our members’ biases for action and risk-taking. Our business is a catalyst for professional transformation, offering workshops, connections, and coaching both online and in person.” The Coven is raising on Wefunder.

NextPower 360

NextPower 360 is working to build wind turbines capable of utilizing high-speed wind. Today, when the wind blows too hard, turbines are stopped like ships seeking safe harbor in a storm. By changing the shape of the turbine, it is capable of operating at a wider range of speeds, utilizing high wind better. NextPower 360 is raising money on NetCapital.