The 2021 GIIN Investor Forum

In this Pro Bono Australia article, Maggie Cogan covers the latest issue brief, The Impact Investing Market in the COVID-19 Context: Investor Support of Enterprises, published by The Response, Recovery, and Resilience Coalition (R3 Coalition), which is managed by the GIIN as the organizing body. This edition focuses on investor support of enterprises during the current COVID-19 crisis.  It highlights the major challenges social entrepreneurs are facing and how impact investing can help address these challenges. 

“This tipping point is a moment of tremendous opportunity: we can demonstrate to the world that money can do so much more than just make more money” - GIIN co-founder and CEO Amit Bouri shares his reflections on how this moment of crisis can play a critical role in pushing the impact investing industry toward greater accountability and “...a ‘race to the top’ with potential to make real progress on our most pressing global goals.”

In this article, Madeleine Taylor interviews Kelly McCarthy, Director, IRIS+ and Impact Measurement and Management at the GIIN, about the standardization of impact measurement and management. According to the GIIN’s 2020 Annual Impact Investor Survey, 66 percent of impact investors highlighted that ‘impact washing’ is an incredibly important issue to tackle if the market is to scale. Kelly explains that a goal on itself is not enough but that “it’s also important to be able to demonstrate measurable performance against that goal.” She underscores that “now more than ever, there is a real cry as the world needs companies to act and reflect on a broader number range of topics than those that have been required by regulators, and those typically captured in profit and loss statements.” According to the GIIN, “…impact will become a feature of company performance, just like the liquidity or risk and return profile of an investment.”

In this article, Financial Investigator’s Jolanda Groot interviews Wouter Koelewijn, European Liaison for the GIIN, about the challenges and the effects of the coronavirus crisis on impact investing. According to Wouter, “there will be a great need as well as a great demand for impact investing as a result of this crisis.” Investors wanting to create a positive societal impact can put their money to work in “efforts to rebuild businesses, restore quality jobs and increase access to basic services such as health, housing, and education” during both the crisis and the recovery phase. In this regard, Wouter underscores the launch of the Response, Recovery, and Resilience Investment Coalition (R3 Coalition) which, managed by the Global Impact Investing Network as the organizing body, “aims to streamline impact investing efforts that will address the large-scale social and economic consequences of COVID-19.”

In this article, Richard H. Levey from The NonProfit Times covers the GIIN’s 2020 Annual Impact Investor Survey. He highlights that, according to the GIIN’s findings, “neither the global pandemic nor a worldwide economic slowdown is reducing impact investing.”

In this article, Anne Field from Forbes interviews Amit Bouri, Co-Founder and CEO of the Global Impact Investing Network, about some key findings from the GIIN’s 2020 Annual Impact Investor Survey. In particular, they focus on the Survey’s findings related to the current COVID-19 crisis and note that impact investors seem to not have abandoned pre-crisis investing plans. According to Bouri, this makes sense, particularly if you understand investors’ reasons for embracing impact. He also underscores, “Impact investors are motivated by issues that are going to take a long time to resolve.”

This Pioneers Post article, covering the Global Impact Investing Network’s (GIIN) 2020 Annual Impact Investor Survey, highlights that impact investors do not seem to be scared off by the current COVID-19 crisis. Indeed, according to the survey, more than half (57%) of the respondents answered, “they were unlikely to decrease the volume of capital they had planned to commit to impact investments this year.” Moreover, the article underscores that this year’s survey, “provides data and insights from the largest number of respondents ever: 294 of the world’s leading impact investors, who collectively manage USD 404 billion of impact investing assets.”

In this Institutional Asset Manager UK article, Madeleine Taylor covers some of the findings from the Global Impact Investing Network’s (GIIN) 10th Annual Impact Investor Survey. For instance, Taylor features data on market growth, noting that “the aggregate AUM of the impact investors that have been repeat respondents to GIIN’s annual survey has almost doubled from USD 52 billion to USD 98 billion” over the past four years. Amit Bouri, Co-Founder and CEO of the GIIN, highlights that this growth can be attributed to an increase in sophistication in impact investing. As the survey points out, the ways firms measure impact has improved significantly over the past decade and “strong performance is motivating investment activity, both in financial and impact terms.”

In this statement posted on Medium, GIIN CEO Amit Bouri reflects on persistent racial discrimination and the urgent need for action. "In this tumultuous moment, we must use our pain as fuel to redouble our efforts toward that future: a future that is more inclusive, more equitable, and more just; a future in which finance is used as a powerful lever to tackle our most urgent challenges; a future in which the “black lives matter” mantra is understood simply as a statement of fact.” - Bouri shares his reflections on structural racism and urges all those in positions to make change happen to take action. George Floyd and far too many others deserve justice.

In this article, Elena Johansson covers how the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can be used as an “investing tool” to drive greater impact, and interviews Rachel Bass, Senior Manager, Research, at the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) in New York. According to Bass, although the application of the SDGs in investments remains an evolving process, the importance of SDG investing is rising. Bass underscores that the GIIN’s 2020 State of Impact Measurement and Management Practice survey revealed that approximately three-quarters of respondents are aligning their portfolios with the SDGs, “using the SDGs to guide their impact measurement and management practices” and to set their targets.