Letter From GIIN CEO and Co-Founder, Amit Bouri

In just one week, we’ll kick off the GIIN’s annual sojourn to San Francisco, starting with Tuesday’s Investor Training workshop followed by the West Coast Impact Forum on Wednesday.

While I’m excited to see new and familiar faces at our convening, I want to acknowledge that we’re gathering at a time of widespread uncertainty. We’re seeing fundamental shifts in how countries collaborate and relate to each other. And it’s happening at a time when many countries all around the world are reckoning with demand from their citizens to address needs at home, as we’ve seen in Bangladesh, Chile, Greece, Indonesia, Morocco, Nepal and the U.S., among others.

Impact investing can help address these demands domestically, while still advancing progress on global goals and championing international cooperation and multilateralism. And as I shared back in January, we anticipate more governments will look to impact investing as a tool to help advance sustainable development and national agendas like we’ve seen in Japan and the U.K. This is because impact investing and elected officials share a common goal: to solve problems for people and the planet.

So as we see the basic elements that make up a decent standard of living slip further out of reach for many – be it affordable food or housing or healthcare or childcare – we need to see this as the clear and urgent call to action for impact investors that it is.

The specific needs of communities take many unique forms: a neighborhood seeking revitalization in order to prosper economically and socially; an urban area with a lack of affordable housing; a natural habitat facing degradation that requires restoration to sustain local livelihoods and biodiversity; a rural community needing quality jobs to employ its population; or an entrepreneur who wants to address a need for their community but can’t access financing.

These complex challenges are not insurmountable, but they require a shift in how we deploy capital to communities – an approach that impact investors know well. I anticipate partnerships across the public, private and philanthropic sectors will be the key to fueling these individualized approaches to place-based investing.

I look forward to seeing some of these necessary partnerships and conversations develop and grow at the West Coast Forum. I hope to see you there.

Money Moves

  • Rabobank has launched an impact investing platform, the Rabo Impact Foundation, with an initial endowment of  €102 million and a €1 billion target. The fund aims to provide high-risk capital for systemic transitions in sectors like energy, food and housing.

News we're watching

  • A former employee has filed a class action lawsuit against Cushman & Wakefield, one of the world’s largest real estate companies, alleging the company breached its fiduciary duty by failing to protect workers’ retirement savings from climate-related risks.
  • According to a report published recently by an advisor to India’s power ministry, the country’s solar capacity is projected to quadruple and wind capacity to triple over the next decade.
  • Bloomberg reports that the rapid global adoption of electric vehicles has avoided the consumption of up to 2.3 million barrels of oil per day last year, according to a modeled scenario from BloombergNEF. This figure is projected to more than double by 2030.
  • Through a state tax abatement program, the Crockett County government in Texas is using investments from wind energy companies to fund a strong network of senior social services.
  • Ten leading European pension funds are actively bridging the venture capital “funding gap” by investing directly into impact funds and startups.
  • Bryan Goh, CEO of the Tsao Family Office Pte. Ltd., joined ImpactAlpha’s Agents of Impact podcast to discuss how the firm prioritizes additionality in its investment strategy, to drive high-impact capital into markets where traditional financing is unavailable.
  • Triodos Investment Management, a GIIN member, won the Endowments Investing Challenge, securing a mandate of up to £50m from six UK charities after a youth-led panel selected its child-focused, "future generations" investment strategy.

News from the GIIN

  • Earlier this month, the IRIS+ and Impact Principles teams from the GIIN partnered with Impact Frontiers to host the IMM Convening 2026 in Montreal. The event brought together experienced IMM practitioners to share insights, explore emerging approaches and contribute to the continued development of rigorous IMM practices.
  • Impact Principles published a new resource on Principle 4 (ex-ante impact assessment) as part of the Common and Emerging Practices series.
  • Our annual survey is officially closed – thanks to everyone who participated! The data collected will directly inform research about the evolving impact investing market, including insights on the size of the market and activities and allocations of global impact investors, which will be published later this year.
  • GIIN board member and co-founder Antony Bugg-Levine has launched a new column in ImpactAlpha, ahead of his widely anticipated book launch, ‘Investing in America.’ He’ll also be speaking on the topic at next week’s West Coast Impact Forum.

Coming up