What do film and fashion have to do with philanthropy?

For a growing number of impact investors, these industries and others that make up the "creative economy" are a powerful lever to strengthen local economies, build resilient communities, and support an equitable COVID-19 recovery. Increasingly, impact investors are using foundations and donor-advised funds to make investments in a variety of local, national, and even international creative economy enterprises that are driving positive social and environmental change. With its focus on solutions that prioritize people and the planet, impact investing complements traditional grantmaking by leveraging the power of markets to create positive change.

And it's not just impact investors who recognize this opportunity. The United Nations declared 2021 the International Year of Creative Economy for Sustainable Development. "The creative economy covers the knowledge-based economic activities upon which the 'creative industries' are based," according to the UN. "These industries include advertising, architecture, arts and crafts, design, fashion, film, video, photography, music, performing arts, publishing, research and development, software, computer games, electronic publishing and TV/radio."

The creative economy is predicted to reach 10 percent of global GDP soon and already employs around thirty million people through the formal economy, plus an estimated three hundred million people in the informal economy. In the United States alone, the creative economy represents a market of more than $920 billion and accounts for more than ten million jobs.

Driving positive social change through the creative economy means overcoming obstacles — such as the fashion industry's extremely high carbon emissions, or a lack of diverse representation in the film industry — and creating new opportunities. That's central to the Creativity, Culture & Capital (CCC) initiative launched in January by Upstart Co-Lab, a nonprofit that connects impact investors to the creative economy in partnership with Nesta's Arts & Culture Finance in the United Kingdom and Fundación Compromiso in Argentina. CCC seeks to develop a just, sustainable, and profitable global creative economy through impact investment.

Read the full article about impact investing in the creative economy by Deb Parsons at PhilanTopic.