Philanthropic Capital in Transition: From Intent to Deployment

Guest: Jenn Kenning, Co-Founder & Former CEO, Align Impact

Why does philanthropic capital stay stuck even when the intent is genuine and the money exists?

Jenn Kenning has spent 25 years at the intersection of wealth management and impact — partnering with financial advisors, institutions, foundations, and families to turn values into capital strategy. Her answer to the deployment gap is not structural. It is human.

In this conversation, Jenn and host Ovidiu Bujorean unpack three key things:

→ The biggest myth: that impact investing requires sacrificing returns or taking more risk. It does not.

→ The gap is not products or instruments. The most powerful unlock in impact investing is a client who has found their own why — and an advisor with the capacity to ask the question that surfaces it. When those two things meet, capital moves.

→ Just 5–10% of global philanthropic giving redirected toward impact unlocks $115–230 billion annually. The donor intent is already there. The roadmap is not.

Jenn introduces the quarterback co-pilot model, goals-based planning as the unlock for scarcity psychology, and the one question that changes everything in an advisor-client conversation.

This is Episode 3 of the RootsToFoods Capital Series — a five-episode practitioner series on the mechanics of capital deployment, hosted by Ovidiu Bujorean, CEO of OviBees Ventures. The series brings together senior practitioners across blended finance, impact capital, and emerging market development to talk honestly about why capital does not move even when the intent is there.

Capital Series Wave 1 · Episode Arc

✅ EP01 · Nathaniel Heller, EVP · Geneva Global — The conditions problem

✅ EP02 · Joan Larrea, CEO · Convergence Finance — The blended finance instrument

🎙 EP03 · Jenn Kenning, Co-Founder · Align Impact - The human dynamic ← YOU ARE HERE

🔜 EP04 · June 16, 2026 · Dr. Frannie Léautier, CEO · SouthBridge Investments - Mobilizing African Capital: Domestic Wealth, Infrastructure & Change

🔜 EP05 · June 30, 2026 · Jeff Hoffman, Chairman · Global Entrepreneurship Network - Building the Ecosystem That Absorbs Capital: The Entrepreneur's Lens.

Stay Inside the Capital Series:

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Download the Capital Insight — EP03 A free two-page practitioner brief with key insights, data, and verbatim takeaways from this conversation. 👉 https://www.rootstofoods.com/episodes

Follow the full series:

Website: www. rootstofoods.com

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/roots-to-foods-podcast/id1712747151 

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6bodsZnw1IEGcf3KLdmxif 

RootsToFoods Capital Series ·Host: Ovidiu Bujorean, CEO, OviBees Ventures