Giving Compass' Take:

• On Medium, Global Impact Investing Network's Amit Bouri discusses the growth of impact investing and how it mirrors some of the important movements in history.

• What are social entrepreneurs around the world doing to advance the cause? Are there enough allies, victories and "champions" to take it to the next level?

• Impact investing still has many obstacles to overcome before it really takes off. Here are just a few.

Few people find that thoughts about pension plans make their heart beat faster. Matters such as future income levels, tax benefits, and inheritance liabilities can be uninspiring. But what if our conversations about pension savings were not just about the money we’ll need to live on in retirement but about the kind of world we want to retire in?

I believe the impact investing movement has the potential to turbocharge an increasingly important part of the solution, providing a powerful catalyst for shifting the way our financial markets work. Part of what gives me this confidence is my observation of other well-known movements  —  from the battle for women’s rights to the environmental movement to the campaign ending South Africa’s apartheid legislation  — that have been effective in shifting societal values and norms.

Research we conducted last year demonstrates growing acceptance of this practice. We found that in 2016 alone, impact investors worldwide committed a total of $22.1 billion in assets into almost 8,000 impact investments, collectively managing nearly $114 billion in assets  —  and this is just the amount held by survey participants. The actual figure is far larger and is growing every year.

But beyond the industry numbers, there is another way of seeing impact investing  —  as a movement, one whose goal is to harness investment capital to change the world.

Successful movements seem to have several success factors in common:

• Clarity of purpose and a vision that creates direction and unites people around a common cause. We certainly saw this in the early women’s movement in the United States, where a group of focused and determined women came together at the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, and made a bold call for equal rights and political representation for all sexes.

• A cohort of champions who can advance their vision and galvanize broader support for it. In the environmental movement, this began in the late 1800s, when small, dedicated groups of environmentalists focused concerted lobbying and education around saving specific endangered species, establishing national parks, limiting deforestation, and reducing pollution.

• Short-term victories that advance long-term goals. In the anti-apartheid movement of the late twentieth century, a group of South African exiles worked with the UN General Assembly to establish a special committee against apartheid practices of racial discrimination. This gave the movement credibility and momentum and, when the committee called upon the international community to impose economic sanctions against South Africa, governments responded with legislation banning new investment into the country. This led to hundreds of companies divesting from South Africa, and in the early 90s, the anti-apartheid movement achieved its goal of repealing legislation supporting racial discrimination.

• Allies outside the core base, from policymakers to businesses and groups working in related areas. For the environmentalists and anti-apartheid campaigners, engaging businesses and governments proved critical.

Assessing the impact investing movement against these four key success factors, I am confident it will achieve its ultimate goal of building a greener, more equitable world.

Read the full article about impact investing as a movement by Amit Bouri at medium.com.