The Newly Organized Non-Profit Rebrands to 'Open Road Impact'; Releases Its Five-Year Open Road Impact Fund Impact Report
WASHINGTON, DC / ACCESS Newswire / June 30, 2025 / Open Road Impact (Open Road), the market leader in impact bridge financing, announced today that it has secured over $35M in impact capital through the first half of 2025. Open Road Impact, a newly created non-profit, is the successor to the Open Road Impact Fund (ORIF), a fixed-term investment fund, which will wind down as planned in 2025. The organization also officially rebranded away from Open Road Alliance to 'Open Road Impact' as part of its move to a not-for-profit model. This new non-profit structure allows Open Road to keep impact at the forefront of its work and double down on its catalytic investment approach as the organization scales.
"As the world becomes more uncertain, philanthropy has an obligation to move quickly and fix things. In Open Road's case, our hybrid philanthropic and investment approach allows us to maximize our impact with every dollar we deploy," says Open Road's Founder, philanthropist Laurie Michaels.
As a 501(c)(3) organization, Open Road can now aggregate donations, grants, "PRI" investments, and other charitable contributions to advance advocacy and innovative partnerships strategies. For example, earlier this year, Open Road received grant funding to support former grantees of USAID's Development Innovation Ventures portfolio. In addition to these new strategic initiatives, Open Road Impact will continue the core strategy previously offered by the Open Road Impact Fund-- fast, flexible bridge loans and plans to expand its reach to help "unstick" capital across the impact ecosystem.
"Moving to a non-profit model affords us the ability to be much more flexible with regards to where and when we deploy our capital," said Caroline Bressan, CEO of Open Road Impact. "Open Road is purposely embracing an impact-first, philanthropic hybrid model that allows us to prioritize impact, take calculated risks and offer faster, more flexible capital to keep vital projects on track. We are hopeful that Open Road can serve as an example to the industry to reprioritize the original tenets of impact investing and are proud of the social and environmental impact we have had around the globe."
With support from a number of leading impact firms, such as Ceniarth and Blue Haven Initiative, Open Road is set to seamlessly pick up where the last fund ended. Adopting an evergreen non-profit structure to keep their bridge loans in the market in perpetuity, Open Road has reemphasized the importance of prioritizing impact for the organizations and end-beneficiaries they fund.
"This new Open Road structure is helping us to ensure that mission-driven organizations around the world stay on track, especially as we are all navigating uncertain macroeconomic and geopolitical events across the impact ecosystem," added Bressan.
Open Road Impact Fund Five-Year Impact Report
Between 2020 and 2025, the fixed-term Open Road Impact Fund stepped in to support borrowers as they navigated through the world's unexpected events, including the COVID-19 pandemic, a pullback of private foreign investment in Africa and the war in Ukraine. Open Road Impact has continued this strategy most recently, by providing essential bridge capital to mission driven organizations affected by the USAID funding freeze.
Open Road Impact Fund's five-year impact report details how since 2020, ORIF disbursed $54 million over 94 loans, keeping $549 million of committed funding on track. Through reinvestment of capital, the organization accelerated the growth of its borrowers as well as the social and environmental outcomes generated. This created a compounding effect, amplifying both financial and impact returns for ORIF's investors, borrowers, and ultimate end-beneficiaries.
The report offers deep dives into two of Open Road's key areas of investment: women and girls and climate action.
Over the last five years, ORIF's investment into enterprises benefiting women and girls catalyzed widespread benefits and improved female livelihoods globally. Since 2020, ORIF has invested $7.4M in companies intentionally focused on serving women and girls, keeping $56M of impact on track. As a proportion of all deals, this made up 15% of the cumulative portfolio.
From mini-grids to nature-based solutions to advanced technology development, ORIF was proud to help accelerate the mitigation of detrimental environmental impacts and the adaptation of affected communities worldwide. Over the last five years, ORIF disbursed $25.4M toward climate-related projects and enterprises. These loans had an average 14X impact return, totaling $365.6M impact kept on track.
You can access the full report here.
About Open Road Impact
Open Road Impact eliminates funding delays and accelerates growth for impact-first companies. Open Road offers fast, flexible, and affordable financing in the form of short-term bridge loans to companies and nonprofits across geographies and sectors facing discrete, unforeseen financing gaps that threaten to derail their work. From installing micro-grids in West Africa to addressing the challenges of financial inclusion in Colombia, Open Road's loans are designed to ensure that companies addressing the world's greatest challenges like climate change and inequality can continue to scale.
Since its founding in 2012, Open Road Alliance entities have disbursed over $100M to 300+ impact companies, including $80 million in loans, keeping more than $1 billion of impact and follow-on financing on track. They provide bridge financing to businesses and projects across the world, including North America.
For more information visit: https://openroadimpact.org/
Contact Information
Cindy Stoller
Managing Director
cstoller@confluencepartners.com
(917) 331 0418
SOURCE: Open Road Impact
View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire:
https://www.accessnewswire.com/newsroom/en/banking-and-financial-services/open-road-impact-announces-it-has-secured-over-35m-of-impact-capital-1043841
