Helping smallholder farmers in Ghana get the best price for their crop. Encouraging sustainability-minded fish suppliers to create new products for the market. Collaborating with world-class biotech companies to develop vaccines for the developing world. While these are efforts that take place in the for-profit world, they are some of the strategies that foundations are beginning to embrace to pursue their charitable missions.
Author Jim Finkelstein says his son is worried about the future: and for good reason. The 21-year-old college graduate and member of the Millennial generation — those born between 1978 and 2000 — recently came across research concluding that, by 2050, global warming will have wrought calamitous changes on the planet. "We need to do something about it now," he told his dad over dinner.
From age ten, I was the oldest male in our household of six. Maybe for that reason, I have never liked submitting to authority; since I had to figure out how to do so many things myself, I resisted others telling me what to do. Though I have had many great bosses, mentors, and friends along the way (many of them described in this Gratitude series), I never had a coach until I met Tom Bird.
Sonen Capital and the impact investment business are logical fits for me. For a variety of political, socio-economic, and environmental reasons, the interplay between public and private finance is increasing. With no shortage of social challenges, and growing societal and investor interest in sustainability, impact investing is set to flourish.
The United States' wealth management industry is in the midst of a transition unlike anything it has ever seen. Over the next several decades, as baby boomers age and transfer their wealth to the next generation, an unprecedented $41 trillion will change hands, according to researchers from the Social Welfare Research Institute at Boston College, whose report focuses on the 55-year period between 1998 and 2052.
When Andy Lower joined the Eleos Foundation as executive director in December 2008, the small, private foundation had a balanced portfolio with Vanguard and was making grants to help eradicate extreme poverty in the developing world. But it was looking to take things up a notch.
Ideas almost always emerge when traditional routes are not enough. One such idea, emerging in our new economy, is a hybrid blend of time-honored philanthropy and investing for financial return called "Impact Investing" — investing to make a difference in the world and make money simultaneously, or "Blended Value."
Not even five years ago, a debate tiptoed into the investing world that pitted do-gooders against bottom-liners: could a responsible, prudent investor – a person acting in a fiduciary role – put weight on environmental, social, and governance factors (ESG) when building a portfolio?
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