The “Who” in impact investing starts with you. Whether you’re new to impact investing or further along in the journey, it is important to understand your position in the ecosystem of players and to consider what resources and influence you can engage to create impact across the capital chain.

From individuals to large institutions, there is a broad range of asset owners, each with distinct capabilities and resources, which will guide their practices. Your Who will guide your engagement with other market participants and stakeholders, drive your Why through a theory of change, and determine How you will ultimately deploy capital.

In order to successfully create impact, you will need to navigate a network of stakeholder relationships that are part of the flow of capital. As a supplier of capital, you will need to assess and understand the ultimate users of your capital as well as the intermediaries. Decisions about how much time, energy, and resources you want to spend will drive how you approach the intermediaries, such as the asset managers, who sit between you and the entities that create impact. While intermediaries are the bridge between your assets and impact creation, they can also create barriers. The expertise and willingness of an advisor to work with you on the creation and evolution of your impact strategy can be critical for its success.

  • Asset Owners
  • Intermediaries
  • Advisors
  • Asset Managers
  • Enterprises
  • Customers/Beneficiaries

As all of these actors work in concert, the impact market system creates impact as well as a financial return. The Impact Market System is a feedback loop of impact investments generating financial return along with impact. This feedback loop distinguishes impact investing from philanthropy and traditional investing.

Read the full article about impact investing by Patrick Briaud And Steven Godeke at Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors.