Impact Investing: Getting Started
Impact Investing Jan 24, 2019
The Philanthropic Initiative launched Invest for Better to make it easier for women to take action and invest with purpose by addressing their need for information, inspiration, community, and support.
Impact investing requires taking a thoughtful look at your money and being intentional about what you want it to do in the world. Here's how to get started:
Know What You Own
Take a critical look at your existing capital: your retirement fund, mutual funds, stocks, bonds, and any other investments you may own. Start asking questions about the companies and funds you're invested in. Do you agree with their missions and the impact their products or services create in the world? Do they have strong environmental records and labor practices?
Define Your Values and Goals
Decide what you want your investments to accomplish. Is it enough to ensure your investments cause no harm, or would you like them to support specific causes and places that you're passionate about?
Understand Your Risk Tolerance and Appetite for Engagement
Do you want to be highly involved in investment research and decisions, or would you prefer that an advisor take the lead?
Create an Impact Investment Policy
This can be a formal policy or merely a set of guidelines and guard rails. Investment Policy Statements are standard practice in traditional investing and provide a formal framework for planning, managing and assessing a successful diversified portfolio.
Talk to Your Financial Advisor
While some financial advisors understand and can easily support an impact investing strategy, others are still learning how.
Talk to Your Partner
Impact investing can be a rewarding project for couples to undertake together, but it requires open, honest, and sometimes messy conversations about money.
Think About What Other Money You Can Influence
Impact investing doesn't just have to be done with personal investments—it can be done using institutional investments too.
Join an Impact Investing Community
Finding a community of like-minded investors who share your values can be helpful as you weigh your investment decisions.
Read the full article about impact investing at Invest for Better.
If you are looking for more articles and resources for Impact Investing, take a look at these Giving Compass selections related to impact giving and Impact Investing.
Global Corporations Look Into Impact Investing By Seeking Help From Entrepreneurs
The hunt for new customers and new innovations is drawing corporate multinationals toward entrepreneurs who are driving impact on the ground with banking services, farm technology, mobile clinics and off-grid energy sources for the billions of people around the world that still lack those services as a means of impact investing. Delivering these products and services aligns with the goals of impact investors. The new corporate partnerships could help scale an array of high-impact firms around the world. Microsoft, for example, turned to Village Capital when it wanted to support local entrepreneurs working to connect to the internet the world's remaining unconnected communities. The venture firm tapped its global network and entrepreneurship accelerator program to identify and train 10 firms and establish a network of peers, mentors, and investors to help the companies grow. Long before BlackRock's letter to corporate CEOs calling for them to define their purpose, corporations were palling around with impact firms and investors looking for the "impact alpha." Some corporations are giving conventional corporate venture funds an impact mandate.Others corporations are turning to their peers — and shared interests — for collaborations that support entrepreneurship. "Entrepreneurs bring drive and vision about what needs to change in the world. Too often they lack the financial and/or technical and sales expertise to turn vision into reality," writes James Mawson, editor-in-chief of Global Corporate Venturing. As an example, the Innovations team at Village Capital grew as requests from new and existing partners piled up. Tashima was recruited from Oxford Business Group to execute the Innovations strategy. With the new program, Village Capital will go outside the geographic mandate of its $17 million venture fund to help connect corporations and other global organizations to entrepreneurs in regions including Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia Read the full article about impact investing through entrepreneurship by Dennis Price at ImpactAlpha.
Learning with others and benchmarking are key steps towards becoming an impact giver. If you are interested in giving with impact for Impact Investing, take a look at these events, galas, conferences and volunteering opportunities to connect with individuals like you.
Impact Investing is an important topic. Other members found these Giving Funds, Charitable Organizations and Projects aggregated by Giving Compass to be relevant to individuals with a passion for Impact Investing.
Women in Impact Investing Lift Up Other Women
These Global Citizens Are Bringing Clean Water and Sanitation to Rural India
Predicting a Kilo of Impact