Marked the “Year of Impact Investing,” 2013 saw a total of $36 billion committed in capital for impact investing. By 2020, it’s estimated that figure will increase to $1 trillion.
The debate over financial and non-financial return factors has long been at the heart of the socially responsible investment debate, no more so than when considering the impact of holdings.
The idea of doing good while making a healthy profit is rapidly gaining ground, particularly among wealthy Silicon Valley entrepreneurs but also among foundations and pension funds. Social impact investing — for-profit investing for social good — has crossed into the mainstream and is driving investment decisions.
Researchers in Bethesda, Maryland, have spent eight years developing a handheld device to quickly assess potential brain trauma in injured U.S. soldiers and athletes with concussions. Jean Case and her husband Steve, who co-founded AOL Inc. (AOL), invested in BrainScope Co., the device's developer, through their family office in 2008.
I started out my search for a summer internship looking for opportunities where finance and sustainability converged. Naturally, impact investing was one the fields where I started to look for opportunities, and managed to find a summer position at Sonen Capital.
This week, the apartment of former child actress Liesl Pritzker was filled with a group of determined and affluent investors who are challenging each other to go all the way with their money... all the way to 100 percent impact.
Impact investing represents a potential additional funding stream for development, but the field is still evolving and those working in it warn we may be expecting too much, too soon.
One measure that impact investing is gaining more traction is the growing collection of books written about that topic. Most of them focus on international investing, but now there are some that address domestic programs as well.
Impact investing represents a potential additional funding stream for development, but the field is still evolving and those working in it warn we may be expecting too much, too soon. While the field may be beyond its initial phase, stakeholders focused on building the infrastructure and proving its case agree that there is still much work to be done.
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