Making Better Business Decisions by Impact Measurement

Impact Investing Reinvented

Impact investing is a central part of a worldwide movement toward investing according to values.  Perhaps most encouraging, investors continue to be overwhelmingly satisfied with the performance of their investments—both in terms of financial return and the impact they generate. Find more information about impact investing on Giving Compass Ten years into the creation of a formal impact investing industry, we are digging even deeper into the data and exploring important issues about the market’s development. To map the way forward from here, we are gathering insights from a diverse global selection of industry stakeholders—including fund managers, institutional investors, and foundations, as well as field-building organizations, advisors, and others in the impact investing ecosystem—to assess the progress the impact industry has made, and identify what is needed to exponentially enhance its scale and effectiveness over the next decade. Here are some of the insights we gleaned from the survey on topics at the forefront of conversations: There isn’t one single way to be an impact investor. The bar is high for large firms entering the industry. Multi-national initiatives are building demand for impact investments. These topics present opportunities for collaboration and collective action for the GIIN and the impact investing community at large. The community can come together to test new product structures that will leverage the market’s diversity (see recent research on guarantees), and share learnings and offer support to new market entrants. At the current stage in the market’s development, it is important for us to reflect on market progress and refocus our attention on our final target. We have the tremendous opportunity to not just keep pace with the traditional capital markets, but to reinvent them entirely. The decisions we make today have the potential to shift attitudes, transform systems, and build the sustainable economy of the future. Read the source article at Stanford Social Innovation Review Find more about how to invest smarter on GivingCompass.org