What Does it Mean to be Catalytic?

How can money amplify impact and spark a wave of change? The answer lies in catalytic capital — a type of funding that plays a transformative role in enabling initiatives to create positive, lasting impact.

Catalytic capital gives early-stage, impact-driven ventures and innovative projects an initial boost to help them unlock more funding and support down the road.

Who can make that happen? Funders and partners such as philanthropic organisations can provide the money, networks, and resources to help impact projects get started, thrive, and scale.

In this illustrated comic strip, we explore how being catalytic is to act like yeast in bread making — where a small amount can contribute to large growth. To view the comic strip as a PDF, click here.

A basic loaf of bread requires flour, water, and salt. But more importantly, you need a raising agent such as yeast. Without yeast, the dough will not rise.

This is the case for climate solutions too. Innovations require money to scale up. They especially need catalytic capital, which may come in many forms like loans and grants. Compared to other types of funding, it often accepts more risks and/or lower returns.

Catalytic capital can support a wide range of impact-driven opportunities that aim to create long-term positive impact. Such funding can go to diverse sectors and projects, such as infrastructure, education, health, climate and nature.

Catalytic funding for an innovative solution can encourage more funders to support the scaling up of the solution, which can even spur further research into other innovative technologies. Examples of initiatives that offer catalytic capital and support include C3H by Temasek Trust, Co-Axis, The Liveability Challenge, and The Earthshot Prize.

Catalytic funding and support enable projects to gain ground and amplify their impact. Especially projects that show great potential to create significant, long-term impact and simply need some help to start or accelerate their journeys. Sometimes, a pinch of yeast can make a world of a difference.

Today, impact innovators may turn to initiatives that offer catalytic capital and support in the form of networks and resources, including:

Catalytic Capital for Climate and Health (C3H): An impact-first vehicle by Temasek Trust that invests in innovative, early-stage companies in the space of Climate, Health, and their intersection.
Co-Axis: A global digital marketplace connecting funders with about 100 impact opportunities from 40+ countries that advance the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
The Liveability Challenge: A global crowdsourcing platform presented by Temasek Foundation that catalyses the commercialisation of disruptive climate innovations to deliver impact for People and Planet.
The Earthshot Prize: A global environmental award offering five winners £1 million each to scale breakthrough solutions to protect and restore our planet.

The comic strip is part of our ongoing explainer series about philanthropy and impact, created in partnership with The Weird and Wild.

Philanthropy can be a powerful catalyst for impact. To dive deeper, check out the first comic in the series, The Superpower of Philanthropy.

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What Does it Mean to be Catalytic?

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