Giving Compass' Take:

• In a blog post at NPC, Peter O'Flynn explains how focusing on transparency around market returns can attract greater contributions from impact investors on pressing global issues. 

• How can evidence of a relationship between good impact and financial return attract impact investors?  What can you do to support data for more clarity in the effects of certain investments?

• Learn more about why philanthropy can benefit from impact investing.

Last month the Financial Times ran a story by Jonathan Ford entitled: Cuddly capitalism needs a clear way to assess if it’s doing good. The piece argued that the majority of impact investors find it hard to accept any trade-off between impact and market returns, leading the impact investing sector to pay more attention to good intentions than good results.

We agree that ‘cuddly capitalism’ needs a clear way of assessing if it’s doing good. At NPC we have long argued that to attract more capital towards solving the world’s most pressing social and environmental issues, investors need more transparency around returns; both financial and impact.

We’ve designed a light-touch framework investors can use to assess the impact potential of their investments. Investors can use our framework to compare impact practice between investees, encourage improvement and promote greater transparency. We hope our tool continues to prove useful in harnessing the potential of for-profit investment to achieve genuine social good.

Read the full article about assessing 'cuddly capitalism' to improve impact investing by Peter O'Flynn at NPC.