Impact Investing News

A remarkable consensus has emerged: Women’s leadership and inclusion is essential for meeting not only UN Sustainable Development Goal No. 5 — gender equality — but the 16 other global goals as well. The women’s agenda is becoming the global agenda. Women and girls were center stage at last week’s Clinton Global Initiative and this week’s Social Capital […]

Two blueprints for investments in Chile’s struggling fishing industry suggest ways to restore depleted fishing stocks, improve local livelihoods and turn a profit for impact investors. Investing in Sustainable Global Fisheries outlines approaches for small-scale and industrial-scale fisheries in Chile as example of broader opportunities. Encourage Capital, an impact asset management firm, developed the strategies  to create economic incentives […]

A new data exchange for the emerging social capital market is connecting isolated pockets of information about social enterprises and impact investments. SODA, the SOcial DAta Commons, is either a geeky piece of infrastructure, or a step toward the kind of market liquidity that can unlock private capital for companies that aim to generate positive social and environmental […]

Media Development Investment Fund took another step in its shift toward digital media, naming Mohamed Nanabhay, former head of Al Jazeera English online, as deputy to CEO Harlan Mandel. Nanabhay will lead the non-profit media fund’s digital investment strategy in emerging and frontier markets. From his base in South Africa, he hopes to expand the firm’s African and […]

I recently sat around a table of investors charged with finalizing the structure of a global impact fund. I couldn’t help but hear the contradictions that laced the discussion. One public investor had a mandate to “catalyze private capital” but was unable to accept any terms considered subordinate to other investors. Another investor wouldn’t be able […]

The broadsheets and social media are currently rife with commentary about the dramatic fall from grace of one of the world’s largest and most trustworthy automotive brands: Volkswagen. The fallout is massive. This means billions in losses for the company. The CEO has resigned and it remains to be seen what the legal and long-term […]

The ImpactSpace Fellowship is celebrating its second year! Applications for next year’s cohorts are now open. The fellowship, which lasts three to six months, is designed to help fellows explore the latest developments and trends in impact investing, with an eye to study or research specific topics. Material produced may also be published on our website. We offer […]

Experts say that we are running out of food for the fish that we eat every day. What should we feed the fish? Can the aquaculture industry, the engine of a growing fish farm industry and its pantry, respond to the demand? After all, costs are rising, weather is irregular, and supply is limited. Absolutely, […]

The Colorado River, which supplies water to 35 million people and four million acres of irrigated agriculture across seven states (plus two in Mexico), is running dry after 15 years of drought. That’s both a problem and an opportunity for impact investors. A new report lays out a menu of approaches through which private capital […]

The Obama administration has removed an obstacle that had blocked private foundations seeking to use their full range of capital to pursue their missions. The new guidance from the Internal Revenue Service could help unlock for so-called “mission-related investments” some of the $650 billion in assets warehoused in the endowments of U.S.-based private foundations. “This guidance is not about telling […]

This year’s Social Capital Markets Conference (SOCAP15) consists of three days of powerful dialogue with leading impact investors, entrepreneurs, and practitioners. Held October 6-9 in San Francisco, the days will be chock full of networking and engaging content addressing the intersection of money and meaning. This year’s themes include panels on the following: Impact Investing, Meaning, Divest/Invest, Financial Inclusion, Neighborhood […]

Israel is a global leader in entrepreneurship, with total of 70 exits and IPOs worth $15 billion in 2014, according to PwC. Its innovative technologies — often developed due to a lack of natural resources such as water — are changing the game in agriculture, energy, healthcare and education. Impressive, but can Israeli innovation spread and […]

Here’s the latest trillion dollar question: How to finance the new Sustainable Development Goals adopted by the United Nations on Friday? The new set of 17 goals for 2030, known as the SDGs, build on the Millennium Development Goals, or MDGs, that were adopted in 2000 and ran through this year. The 169 specific targets […]

Paperwork and bureaucracy aren’t just pains in the backside of everyone working at every small business or smaller nonprofit. They’re also barriers to entry — for new people, new ideas and even new sources of capital. Crowdfunding might help level the playing field, but even that has a new set of challenges and limitations. When […]

A growing number of Catholic institutions are putting their money where Pope Francis’s mouth is. Francis last year explicitly endorsed impact investments that respond to social and environmental challenges. In encyclicals, speeches and meetings with heads of state, Pope Francis has broadly emphasized society’s collective responsibility to tackle inequality, make markets work for the poor, and address human-induced climate change. […]

Can the tech industry must the capacity to saves the oceans from overfishing, habitat destruction and acidification? “Oceans are essential, they are our pharmacy and pantry and a primary source of protein for billions,” said Wendy Schmidt, founder and vice president of the Schmidt Ocean Institute, during a panel on ocean innovation during Dreamforce, the annual conference […]

Backers of startups worldwide are looking for the next “disruptive trend” that can overturn industries. Ironically, the venture capital industry has begun to resemble markets that investors themselves are looking to disrupt. Speculation about the “next dot-com bubble” abounds weekly; entrepreneurship champion the Kauffman Foundation reflected upon two decades of investing venture capital by saying, […]

by Sunny Lewis DURBAN, South Africa, September 16, 2015 (Maximpact News) – Investing in forestry means investing not only in trees but in people and in sustainable development, delegates to the 14th World Forestry Congress in Durban affirmed last week. Held with the theme “Forests and People: Investing in a Sustainable Future,” the week-long meeting […]

The seafood industry has the ability to trace the journey of a fish from ocean to dinner plate. But does it have the stomach to make the necessary changes? A Sustainable Seafood Industry Lab in San Francisco this week explored ways to trace the path of the fish we eat. Hardware and software developers are building traceability […]

The ocean’s problems are well known. Solutions, not so much. And opportunities to invest in those solutions have been even harder to find. That’s changing, in no small part thanks to Monica Jain and her Fish 2.0 business competition, which has just announced the 37 seafood and aquaculture companies that will compete for prizes and attention […]

The Global Ethical Finance Forum in Scotland earlier this month was animated by mutual enlightenment and the spirit of Edinburg’s native son, Adam Smith, whose Wealth of Nations provided some of the philosophical and psychological underpinning of the conference. Smith’s writing is often misinterpreted, and so too is Islamic finance. Under the theme ‘convergence and collaboration,’ the […]

We’ve been measuring philanthropic giving for decades. There are several directories and annual tallies of American charitable giving. For about the last decade, the impact investing movement has been trying to establish definitions, baselines, and annual measurements. It’s a work in progress, but they’re getting there. All kinds of groups monitor and measure spending on […]

By Sunny Lewis MANILA, Philippines, September 11, 2015 (Maximpact News) – The backbone of Asia’s economies are small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), but these companies need better access to finance to grow and generate new jobs for the region, says a new Asian Development Bank report. The Asia SME Finance Monitor 2014, which assesses 20 […]

First-time fund managers have a hard time raising capital in any area of private equity. Add in low-income customers, challenging frontier markets and a requirement for demonstrable social impact and first-time social-impact fund managers face even greater obstacles. Yet without the ability to raise their first funds, even the sharpest impact fund managers won’t be […]

The editor’s note introducing our Financing Fish Briefing No. 3: Among the glimpses I got of the changing seafood industry this month on a family visit to Deer Isle, Maine: working waterfronts, fish farms and climate change. Maine’s waters are among the fastest-warming in the world. The impact on fisheries is dramatic, including the closure […]

A t-shirt can send a message about sex trafficking. Drew Oxley thinks he can send an even stronger message by creating jobs and economic opportunity for former sex workers. After a successful Kickstarter campaign, the Cincinnatti entrepreneur will source The Parative Project’s t-shirts, tote bags and banners from India via the Aruna Project, which supports women rescued from India’s […]

I’m an activist and a financial advisor. That’s not traditional, but it’s typical for us millennials. The millennial generation (born between 1980 and 2000) is the largest generation in America and is about to receive one of the largest transfers of wealth in modern history. A projected $30 trillion in financial and non-financial assets will pass from Baby […]

Has illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing met its match in Big Data? So-called IUU fishing thwarts marine restoration initiatives, degrades natural resources, abets human rights violations and leaks billions of dollars from the global economy. Pirate fishers have largely acted fearlessly because there was no way to track them or enforce law in remote, international […]

There’s a term emerging for the investment risks and opportunities ushered in by a changing climate: climate exposure. A new report from the Climate Policy Initiative, a nonprofit thinktank founded in 2009 with support from financier George Soros, and Stanford’s Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance, backed by California billionaire Tom Steyer, surveys the landscape of […]

The multifaceted event known as Catapulta has grown organically from a loose gathering of creatives in the capital of the Mexican state of Oaxaca. This summer’s third convening, held in the spacious art and cultural space known as La Calera and a downtown cultural center, showed it has stayed true to its roots. The “Festival […]

When I first heard people making generalizations about “millennials,” I realized that I was, indeed, in that category. I embraced what I had learned as a philosophy major . “Know thyself” – or, myself as the case may be. What I learned was spot-on. Millennials, are intrigued and motivated by the potential and the power […]

From The Mint: Mumbai–Financial inclusion service provider IFMR Holdings Pvt Ltd. said on Thursday it has raised $25 million in equity from Accion International, LeapFrog Investments and impact investment fund Lok Capital. Accion is investing $12.5 million of the total, LeapFrog Investments $9 million and Lok Capital $3.5 million. The company provides access to finance […]

ImpactAlpha is excited to again be a media sponsor of SOCAP, the annual gathering of the Social Capital Markets community. For the eighth year in a row, SOCAP15 will convene leading impact investors, world-class entrepreneurs, and innovative cross-sector practitioners for three full days of networking and engaging content. Last year’s sold out-event gathered more than 2,200 […]

Philanthropic funders are working to close the funding gap for social startups with a new mix of flexible investment tools. RSF Social Finance, for example, plans to launch four new funds focused on fair trade, biodynamics, soil health, and women. The new funds are modeled after RSF’s Local Initiatives Fund, which was launched in 2012 to […]

Entrepreneurship was top of President Obama’s agenda during his recent trip to East Africa. But as he noted in his keynote address at the 2015 Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Nairobi, “This is still a neglected market, and accessing capital for entrepreneurs here is still too hard.” One group trying to change that: impact investors. A new report […]

Village Capital has relied on peer selection to build one of the most productive accelerator programs in the impact investing marketplace. In six years, “Vilcap” has launched more than 35 accelerator programs on five continents, investing $2 million in 55 early-stage companies. Entrepreneurs chose every investment. Now Ross Baird, Village Capital’s executive director, is taking peer selection to the big, […]