Invest Appalachia

Invest Appalachia (IA) is a collaborative impact investment platform created by and for the people of Central Appalachia. We operate across the Appalachian counties of Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, Ohio, North Carolina, and Tennessee with the aim of making our region's collective potential greater than the sum of its parts. We are a regionally representative fund that leverages deep relationships and investments from our partners in philanthropy, community finance, and community economic development. Central Appalachia has a long history of chronic underinvestment. Invest Appalachia emerged from a conversation about what it will take to change this narrative – building on existing capacity, filling critical capital gaps, and increasing coordination across the region’s investment ecosystem. Our investment strategy, pipeline, impact goals, and governance are guided and grounded by place-based community stakeholders. And we are committed to outcomes and processes that embody our values: Participatory, Accessible, Transparent & Democratic, Equitable, Self-Reliant.