Meeting the Moment:
What Our Fellows Bring—and What They Build
By Stephen Snider, Program Coordinator
We celebrate our Spring 2024 Fellows. Below we summarize our findings from gauging the interests / next steps for the Fellows. We’re proud of them for completing our Spring 2024 Fellowship program. As we gear up for 2025 programming, we want to look back at 2024 and celebrate those who have completed our Fellowship. We’re proud of our Fellows for participating in our learning journey. They join our mission of democratizing impact investing & sustainable finance education to diversify & empower the next generation of impact professionals.
Reflections from the NEIII program team on the expectations Fellows brought—and how the program rose to meet them.
Each cohort, the NEIII Fellowship begins with a shared sense of possibility. Fellows arrive from across the globe with varied experiences, but nearly all come with a few common hopes: to gain technical expertise, clarify career direction, connect with a mission-driven community, and grow—both personally and professionally.
We take those expectations seriously. And this year, we witnessed something extraordinary.
From the start, Fellows dove into technical sessions—from ESG screening and due diligence to regulatory insights and impact measurement. Their hunger for knowledge was matched by their questions: How do we assess real-world outcomes, not just metrics? What structures actually shift capital to marginalized communities? How do we integrate impact into every corner of finance?
But beyond skills, many came looking for a deeper kind of clarity: What role can I play in this system? What does impact mean to me?
Over the course of three months, we saw Fellows transform uncertainty into purpose. Career exploration sessions became launchpads for bold decisions. Some Fellows pivoted toward new fields or created entirely new roles. Others deepened their work in sustainable finance, now with more confidence and community behind them.
Networking was another cornerstone. We knew relationships would matter—and so did our Fellows. They didn’t just attend sessions; they showed up for one another. From breakout rooms to off-platform conversations, they built a web of collaboration that we hope will last far beyond the Fellowship.
From our side, we also heard clear feedback: Fellows want more foundational finance content early on. They want layered learning—starting with the basics and advancing toward complexity. They want more space to engage with non-investor voices: NGOs, suppliers, community leaders, and customer groups. And they want room to build—to apply what they’ve learned in real-world scenarios.
These are not small asks. But they’re exactly the kind of ambitious thinking that gives this program its strength and what we're centering with the program.
What our Fellows taught us this year is that technical skills are important, but so is trust. So is creating a space where people can ask big questions, try new ideas, and define what impact means on their own terms. We invite our future cohorts to be active learners in this way.
We’ll take their lessons with us into the next chapter of the Impact Investing Fellowship. And we’ll keep building this program to meet Fellows not only where they are, but where they hope to go.
