GIIN Investor Forum 2019

In this op-ed for Financial Advisor, Amit Bouri reflects on faith-based investors’ alignment with impact investing, tracing the history of their position at the “heart [of] values-based investing.” Bouri states that impact investing allows investors to “deepen the ties between their capital and their faith,” and encourages more institutions to join the practice due to the “momentum and appetite for faith-based investors to work with existing impact investors and organizations to design an impact approach that reflects both their faith and their financial requirements.”

Justin Conway makes a case for financial advisors to become more informed about impact investing. He notes, “impact investing is real and growing,” “clients want impact investing options, so financial advisors need to catch up,” and “talking with clients about impact investing can pay huge dividends to your practice” as top reasons. Referencing the GIIN’s 2019 Annual Impact Investor Survey’s findings on predictions for market growth, Conway also states that advisors “can only expect this interest in genuine impact to grow.”

Forbes interviews Lori Chatman, SVP at Enterprise Community Investment and President and CEO of Enterprise Community Loan Fund, about Chatman’s involvement in impact investing. The interview shares how Chatman became involved because she “longed to use her talent for numbers and investments to disrupt ongoing economic disparities, helping communities that normally do not receive capital investments to do so.” Chatman told author MeiMei Fox that it is “energizing” to know that there is “a whole community of like-minded people looking every day for ways to create better opportunities for those who, because of the situations they are in, must focus on day-to-day survival.”

Financial Investments News covers the GIIN’s 2019 Annual Impact Investor Survey, focusing on its growth projections for investment capital and individual investments in the coming year. FIN News discusses this with GIIN Research Manager Rachel Bass, who provides insights about this finding and encourages the nonprofit investment community to “think about what role they could play in driving social and environmental change and how they can align their assets with their values as an organization and in the broader spectrum.”

In this WSJ Pro article, Luis Garcia covers the increased demand for impact investing that investors have been witnessing in recent years, as well as the need to create a universal set of measurement methods, due to the growing numbers and variety of stakeholders. Garcia discusses this with Kelly McCarthy, Director of Impact Measurement and Management at the GIIN, who believes that there is “still so much innovation and creativity that needs to be fostered” in regards to impact measurement approaches.

This World Resources Institute blog post covers the launch of a new theme on Sustainable Forestry, which was created in conjunction with WRI’s Global Restoration Initiative on the GIIN’s Navigating Impact project, a component of the GIIN’s larger IRIS+ system. The new theme identifies five main impact investment opportunities in the sustainable forestry space, and provides evidence, metrics and strategies for each. The blog also details why investments in this sector are an increasingly compelling financial and impact opportunity, which has already shown its ability to “make a profit while reducing greenhouse gases, [strengthen] local economies, [increase] incomes, [and improve] ecosystem services like water quality, air quality, [and] soil productivity.”

This Financial Times article discusses the entry of more pension funds into the impact investing space as they realize the practice is “directly relevant to the interests and long-term security of their clients and beneficiaries.” Author Catherine Howarth explains the important role institutional investors can play in the achievement of impact investing’s mission, in terms of both capital and influence. Howarth also references the GIIN’s Core Characteristics of Impact Investing to underscore the need for “every fiduciary investor, including every pension fund, [to see] themselves as an impact investor” in order to meet the Sustainable Development Goals.

Pensions & Investments highlights how there’s an increasing number of pension funds and other large institutional investors making impact investments as “the approach goes mainstream.” Author Hazel Bradford speaks to GIIN CEO Amit Bouri about this growth and cites data from the GIIN’s 2019 Annual Impact Investor Survey that supports this finding. Bradford comments that as the world’s major environmental and social issues “come up as almost daily topics,” this trajectory will continue.

In this Al Jazeera article, Dawn Kissi claims that “impact investing is experiencing a boom” due to “concerns about climate change, human rights and social justice dominating pop culture today.” Kissi uses data from the GIIN’s 2019 Annual Impact Investor Survey to discuss the current state, future, and successes and challenges of the impact investing market.

In this Al Jazeera article, Ben Piven breaks down the differences between socially responsible investing and impact investing. He notes that clarifying definitions will benefit the increasing number of investors looking for “double bottom line returns that meet financial goals and advance their personal values where people and the planet are concerned.” He provides a definition of impact investing and addresses common questions about the practice, including whether impact investors can also make money and how impact is measured. Piven highlights the work of the GIIN, and the creation of IRIS+ in particular, in this breakdown.