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Going Beyond Capital: How Impact Investing Can Become More Accessible and Inclusive
There's a troubling trend in the impact investing sector: Despite growing awareness of the need for more socially conscious investing, most investors don't know how to get started — and they often don't realize the breadth of opportunities they have to make an impact. Eva Yazhari of Beyond Capital Ventures explores ways to make this young industry more accessible, and explains how investors can — and should — address the bias and exclusivity that are preventing impact investing from maximizing its potential.
- Categories
- Investing
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Improving the Outcomes-Readiness of Implementors – A Key Step Towards Scaling Results-Based Financing
With less than a decade left to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, the development financing gap has widened. According to Gagandeep Nanda at Dalberg and Dhun Davar and Sietse Wouters at UBS Optimus Foundation, results-based financing can provide a solution. But though organizations have high interest in participating in results-based financing, many are not ready to take on funding that is tied to outcomes instead of inputs and activities. They share five characteristics of effective outcomes-ready implementing organizations, and five ways these groups can be set up for success.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Investing
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Getting In the Game: How Wealthy Individuals and Families Can Bring Impact-First Investing Off the Sidelines
The vast majority of impact investments target market-rate returns, which leaves impact-focused enterprises with lower prospects for competitive returns struggling to attract capital. But as Mariah Collins of The Bridgespan Group explains, there's a group of influential and deep-pocketed investors who are ideally placed to change this dynamic: wealthy individuals and families. She shares findings from a recent report that aims to shed light on this largely untapped opportunity, and discusses why the shift to impact-first investing has never been more important — or easier — to make.
- Categories
- Investing
- Tags
- impact investing, SDGs
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The Wild West of ESG Reporting: A New Report Finds a Disturbing Lack of Standards and Transparency
Businesses around the globe have been embracing environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting to demonstrate responsible corporate citizenship and attract investors. But as David A. Fuscus of Xenophon Strategies, Inc. explains, this data is often inconsistently reported and unaudited, and nearly impossible to compare across companies. He shares the results of a recent survey on corporate reporting, and explores how widely used standards and increased transparency could better gauge a company’s actual progress toward more sustainable and responsible practices.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Investing
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Creativity, Culture and Capital: Why Impact Investors Should Recognize the Untapped Potential of the Global Creative Economy
Impact investors have been overlooking a large and rapidly growing sector, one driven by women, youth and other overlooked workers and entrepreneurs and aligned with many key impact priorities: the creative economy. Laura Callanan at Upstart Co-Lab, Fran Sanderson at Nesta and Carolina Biquard at Fundación Compromiso explain why the industry is a powerful force for social and economic development, and share insights from a recent report from Creativity, Culture & Capital, a new initiative that seeks to develop the global creative economy through impact investing.
- Categories
- Investing, Social Enterprise
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Scaling the Last-Mile Distribution Industry With Data-Driven Lending
Low-income consumers in emerging markets rely heavily on last-mile distributors (LMDs) for access to life-changing products, from smartphones to solar home systems. But as Erin Junio at Angaza explains, despite the critical role they play in the sale and distribution of these products, LMDs struggle to access the funding they need to scale. She explores the funding challenges these businesses face — and how data-driven innovations in lending are emerging to close this financing gap.
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Impact Investing in Financial Inclusion in Southeast Asia: Four Key Considerations for Investors and Enterprises
Southeast Asian nations are seeing movement toward greater financial inclusion, but this growth, fueled mostly by digital innovations, is not enough to meet customer needs, say Komal Sahu and Danielle Todesco of AVPN. They share four key considerations that investors and enterprises can take into account to promote interoperability, financial literacy and product accessibility while boosting financial access in the region.
- Categories
- Finance, Investing, Social Enterprise
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Beyond Risk: How Addressing Transaction Costs Can Boost Lending to Agricultural SMEs in Africa
Providing loans to agricultural enterprises in East Africa can be a complicated task, with challenges ranging from higher origination costs to arduous journeys to conduct due diligence. As Brian Milder of Aceli Africa explains, that makes many lenders reluctant to serve these businesses — and this lack of capital is stunting the growth of local agri-SMEs. In this third article in a four-part series, he explores the barriers to financing in the industry – particularly the under-recognized role of high transaction costs in limiting capital flows – and shares how Aceli is addressing them.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Investing
- Tags
- impact investing, lending
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