NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Friday, June 1, 2018

By Michael Fisher

A new study by the Women’s Philanthropy Institute finds that both men and women embrace impact investing as a means of achieving social and financial returns. However, gender differences exist in how they approach impacting investing.

When men make the philanthropic decisions in their households — either as single men or as sole deciders in their marriages or partnerships — they are likelier to replace charitable giving with impact investing than single women or couples in which the decisions are made jointly or the woman is the sole decider.

The research, which was funded by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, further showed that four out of five men and women were aware of impact investing, but women were likelier to want to learn more about it. Women were also more likely to make impact investments in tandem with their charitable giving rather than replace the one with the other.

Photo courtesy of Francisco Osorio.