Impact investing appears to have been seduced by a convenient narrative. According to the prevailing view, the achievement of both social impact and market-rate financial returns is the norm—not the exception. Those who question the financial returns aspect of this assumption are portrayed as lacking business savvy. “If we want to change things and we want to make an impact, we can’t be hippy-ish about this,” pop singer and philanthropist Bono said at the Skoll World Forum in April. “Impact investing has really been an excuse for good people to do bad deals.”

Impact investing was originally created to improve the lives of others; that impact investing could also deliver financial returns to investors was a means to that end. But nowadays, achieving predefined financial returns has become the primary goal, with the needs of investors taking priority over the interests of the communities their funding seeks to benefit. This trend has fueled a growing mismatch between the supply of impact investment and the demand for funding from enterprises working to improve conditions for marginalized communities.

Read the source article at Stanford Social Innovation Review