Wednesday, June 10, 2026

Toniic Announces new SDG Impact Theme Framework

By
Gino Baltazar, MS Finance
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Toniic

Toniic, an impact-investment non-profit based in San Francisco, announced its SDG Impact Theme Framework at the Confluence Philanthropy 7th Annual Practitioners Gathering in New Orleans, Louisiana on Wednesday.

What It Is

The new Framework proposes linkages to 11 macro impact investing themes, and 55 sub-themes, to the United Nations’ own Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It is designed to improve how impact might be better measured.

Toniic’s announcement is timely, given heated interest in the impact measurement space, evidenced by a well-attended ESG Forum impact measurement event last week, also in San Francisco, and by United Nations Deputy Secretary-General, Amina Mohammed first address in her new role, in New York at the opening of the 2017 UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) segment on Operational Activities for Development.

Toniic’s Global Reach

Toniic’s 160-member community represent more than 360 impact investors from 22 countries – it has global reach.

About 80 members in its community have also committed to move entire portfolios, ranging in size from about $2 million to more than $300 million into 100% impact investments. The total commitment represents close to $4 billion.

***

“The SDGs are a set of seventeen inter-related aspirational goals for the planet approved by the United Nations in 2015 that bring together developing and developed world and public and private sector opportunities. They contain 169 targets for sustainable development of the planet to be achieved by 2030. These include ending poverty and hunger, improving health and education, making cities more sustainable, combating climate change, and protecting oceans and forests.

“The SDGs are proving to be a potent rallying point for the entire sustainability ecosystem,” said Jed Emerson, Senior Fellow of Toniic Institute. “From inception, the SDGs were conceived as requiring public/private cooperation. Aligning the private capital of impact investment with government action will greatly accelerate achievement of the goals.”

“Toniic members are increasingly targeted in their impact investing,” said Adam Bendell, CEO of Toniic Institute. “We created the Toniic SDG Impact Theme Framework to better link Toniic members to relevant investment opportunities, and with other members working for the same goals. We found broad interest in the community to use the framework, so we made it open source in hopes of accelerating impact opportunities more broadly, and more quickly.”

“We see great interest among Confluence Philanthropy members in the SDGs as a unifying framework,” said Dana Lanza, CEO of Confluence Philanthropy. “We are delighted that Toniic chose our signature annual gathering to release this simple but important contribution to the field.”

An overview of the Toniic SDG Impact Theme Framework is available on the Toniic website at toniic.com/sdg-framework. Also available are the full framework, including Theories of Change for each sub-theme.”

Malaysia launches a RM3 Million Reimbursable Social Outcome Fund

By
Gino Baltazar, MS Finance
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Malaysia launches social fund that reimburses investors
Sun News Daily Malaysia

Malaysia is launching a RM3 million Social Outcome Fund (SOF) directed towards social projects to assist marginalized communities in the country and that will also refund investors if their investments result is 1.5 times or more of value in terms of cost savings for the government.

Incentives Matter

The fund encourages corporations and foundations to go beyond their corporate social responsibility (CSRs) and help individuals and communities, as part of a social economy, achieve a more complete interaction with public and private sectors, the announcement said.

“It is our hope that potentially enabling social-purpose organisations (SPOs) will take this opportunity to obtain funds for their social programmes,” Minister Datuk Seri Nancy Shukri said in her speech at the launch of the Social Economic and Investment Conference 2017 held in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia this week.

Timely Solution for the Marginalized

The announcement of the new fund may be timely given Malaysia’s recent announcement of its GDP growth of 4.5%, which is 0.25% lower than average 4.75% GDP growth in the past 10 years.

And while there is no official data for job participation rate in Malaysia, its sub-4% unemployment rate indicator does not appear to corroborate anecdotal evidence that joblessness is far higher among Malays and Indians and under-employment among Malays, Chinese and Indians, its marginalized communities.

In those communities, many Malaysians struggle on a single income, many do not receive their “minimum” monthly wage of MYR900 (US$200) and even more may suffer a projected 3.6% inflation in consumer goods following a recent consumption tax hike.

***

“Agensi Inovasi Malaysia (AIM) CEO Datuk Mark Rozario said the fund will be managed by AIM and a committee will be established to approve proposals as the fund will be seeking proposals from SPOs whose programmes are funded by impact investors.

“We’re not limiting it (SFO) to any number (of companies), it depends on what sort of proposals come and the outcome that they deliver. This is not money to be given as grants but as a reimbursement to the impact investors based on the outcomes delivered,” he said.

There are 200 social enterprises in Malaysia but there are still organisations out there that have not psychologically categorized themselves as social enterprises.

The SOF is based on AIM’s Social Progress Assessment (SPA), which commenced concurrently with the SOF project. The scope of the SPA is to identify key social issues and direct and tangible costs incurred by the government.

The SPA quantified the impact of social interventions, starting with identifying and analysing over 500 social indicators, their baselines and the unit cost of delivering associated social services by the government.”

Source: Sun News Daily Malaysia

World Bank Raises EUR163M in SDG Bonds – a First

By
Gino Baltazar, MS Finance
-
World Bank raises $173 million with first SDG Bond
Reuters

The World Bank has issued a pair of bonds that will, for the first time, directly link returns to the performance of companies that advance Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), including gender equality, health and sustainable infrastructure.

The new bonds, totaling EUR163 million, will be linked to the Solactive Sustainable Development Goals World Index, an index basket of 50 companies that devote at least 20% of business activities to SDG, based on methodology developed by Vigeo Eiris.

Vigeo Eiris is a global provider of environmental, social and governance research to investors and public and private corporates.

The bond was arranged by BNP Paribas as part of the “SDGs Everyone” initiative.

Investors in the bond include AGPM VIE, AREAS VIE, BNP Paribas CARDIF France, BNP Paribas CARDIF Italy, Fideuram Asset Management Ireland, Generali France, MGEN, Prevoir VIE, Sella Gestioni SGR and Suravenir.  Their supporting statements below.

***

“A €106.8m 15-year tranche sees all returns delivered at maturity to reflect index performance from the initial level to an average over years 10 and 15. The €56.8m 20-year part pays a fixed 1.2% coupon for the first 10 years, with the remaining 10 years paid out via a coupon reflecting the best performance of the index between years five and 10 over an average of the preceding five years.

The deal represents the first issue from the World Bank’s “SDGs Everyone” initiative announced in January. Unlike a typical Green bond, where proceeds are earmarked for specific environmental projects, proceeds from SDG issues will be used for general development projects.

“We are confident that we can replicate the success of the World Bank’s Green Growth Bonds with this new programme,” said Olivier Osty, executive head of global markets at BNP Paribas.

“This bond is an innovation that demonstrates the powerful role of capital markets in connecting savings with development priorities, while offering investors an attractive risk-reward profile,” said Arunma Oteh, World Bank vice president and treasurer.”

“The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is a transformative agenda which aims to make our world more inclusive, peaceful and prosperous. There is a momentous opportunity to change incentive structures in financial markets, shape consumer preferences as well as shareholder interest so that they reflect sustainability. Collaboration between the public and private sector will help to leverage innovative financial solutions that can deliver on the SDGs.” Amina J. Mohammed, UN Deputy Secretary-General.

“We are proud to be part of the SDGs Everyone initiative which will support the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Since 2014, BNP Paribas Cardif in France has invested more than 4 billion euros in SRI. Today we are delighted to announce that our Italian subsidiary joins our French entity in investing in this new sustainable bond. These innovative products combine financial performance with environmental and social impacts, and as a responsible investor, we are pleased to have played an active role in their development.”  Olivier Héreil, Chief Operating Officer and Head of Asset Management, BNP Paribas Cardif.

“We are pleased to have been part of this initiative. Fideuram’s participation in the transaction reflects the dual mandate of our Ethical fund: to pursue financial opportunities and, at the same time, to have a positive impact on the community.” Pietro Calati, Head of Investments, Fideuram Asset Management Ireland.

“We are enthusiastic to invest in this initiative in support of the SDGs and look forward to more issues like this.” Nicola Trivelli, Chief Investment Officer, Sella Gestioni SGR

“We are very proud to participate in this innovative initiative which supports the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Innovation and responsible investments are at the heart of the strategies of Suravenir and Credit Mutuel Arkea. We see this as an opportunity to promote innovative investment products that combine performance with sustainable investments, together with the great satisfaction that comes with contributing to the development of these new solutions.” Bernard Le Bras, President and Chief Executive Officer, Suravenir.

Sources: World Bank, Reuters

$282M in green finance for old and dirty ships

By
Gino Baltazar, MS Finance
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Green finance for dirty ships
Alamy Images

New green-lending vehicles, such as one called “Save as you Sail“, a brainchild of the Sustainable Shipping Initiative are being created to help upgrade shipping vessels that carry the majority of global trade among modern economies in today’s world, but are main nitrogen, carbon and sulfur polluters to the planet.

Lloyd Register

Why It Matters – Shipping’s Carbon Footprint

As trade and globalization rose in past years, so has the shipping industry. 90% of world trade is transported by ships today, an increase of 400% in the last 45 years. Annually, the planet’s oceans see up to 100,000 working vessels traveling an incredible 160,000 nautical miles or 67% of the distance to the moon.

With those distances and high growth rates, it is no surprise that the shipping industry lays down a significant carbon footprint (see chart). According to a 2009 report, the top 15 largest ships emit as much as all the 780 million cars in the world combined in terms of particulates, soot and noxious gases. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) says sea shipping makes up around 3% of global CO2 emissions.

A chief source of pollution is degrading and inefficient ship technology in older vessels. A particularly well-known one is inaccurate fuel readings of consumption.

The “Save as you Sail” aims to better quantify and share the fuel savings between the shipowner and the charterer over a longer contract, giving both an incentive to make the necessary upgrades.

Newer technologies will allow more accurate readings, more streamlined hull designs and upgraded electrical ship grids to include regenerated solar and wind power.

***

“Tens of billions of dollars are needed to pay for upgrades to meet the new rules, according to James Mitchell at CWR. But the industry can hardly pay even its existing debts. Freight rates have collapsed owing to a slowdown in world trade since the financial crisis and to enormous overcapacity. An earnings index compiled by Clarksons, a research firm, covering the main vessel types (bulk carriers, container ships, tankers and gas transporters), touched a 25-year low in 2016. Banks do not want to throw good money after bad.

So finance providers are keen to get involved. Last June the European Investment Bank announced €250m ($282m) in funding for such retrofits; it hopes other banks will follow suit with billions more. In future, the idea might be extended to greening aircraft and trains.

For now these businesses do not suffer a shortage of finance. But a downturn is a matter of “when not if”, says Michel Dembinski at MUFG. Green finance could rescue many other industries sailing into a storm.”

Measuring the Impact of Social Design

By
Gino Baltazar, MS Finance
-
Cheryll Heller

Once considered an afterthought in approaching product strategy, design is now often wielded as a strategic weapon by most firms that are striving to differentiate themselves in today’s modern consumer markets.

In the last twenty-five years, firms like Apple, Tesla, Uber and Amazon have succeeded in no small part due to superior product and service design, so successful in fact that many consumers now associate their brands with design and innovation.

Apple’s Steve Jobs was said to have been strongly averse to “third-rate products” that he worked creatively to “institutionalize” design and consumer experience at Apple in a way that today, products that are shipped still resonate with Apple’s customers.  New product releases never fail to generate hype, buzz and excitement.

Immersive Design Philosophy

The same type of argument for superior social design, that is truly understanding and measuring the impact of solutions to social problems, is now being made by Cheryll Heller, founder of design lab CommonWise and founding chair for MFA Design for Social Innovation at SVA, in a thoughtful article at Stanford Social Innovation Review.

She argues that social design can’t really happen in isolation, in a conference room or in a place that is remote from where social problems are occurring.  Social designers need to be more immersed in, engaged in and more perceptive of the needs of the people that their product or solution designs are supposed to serve and impact.

***

“Those of us who practice, fund, commission, and teach the nascent discipline of social design agree without hesitation on a couple of things: People who experience this type of design in action believe it can transform the way we approach and solve social problems, and are investing a great deal of money and energy—by any measure—in developing the field based on results so far.

We also agree that we don’t agree on whether it should be called social design, human centered design, social innovation design, or impact design; nor can we agree on precisely where the boundaries lie between it and more traditional design approaches.

We find ourselves at an inflection point, with a need to define, measure, and scale the impact of social design if we are to realize its potential.

The core principles of social design are:

  • Solutions come from understanding and engaging communities in need of help (not from conference rooms)
  • Prototyping and observation are more effective than five year plans, and
  • All social issues are systemic and must be understood and acted upon that way.

One clear lesson that emerged from the summit, however, is that while social design—wherever we practice it and at whatever scale—is defined by a common process, we cannot always measure it in the same way. We need different yardsticks to measure the impact of product design, service design, built environments, and the design of new cultures. Each application impacts change in a unique way.

The benefit of measuring the adoption and function of products meant to improve people’s lives, rather than how well a product performs in a laboratory setting, is the difference between solving problems and wasting opportunities.“

Source: Stanford Social Innovation Review 

Inner Motivation & The Power of Impact Investing – Annie Chen

By
Gino Baltazar, MS Finance
-

Entrepreneurs for Good interviews Annie Chen, founder and chair of RS Group, a family office based in Hongkong.

Who She Is

Annie Chen, considered a pioneer of impact investing in Asia, initially built investment relationships and portfolios with funds that had no track record but showed promise and before terms like “conscious capitalism”, “philanthro-capitalism”, or “blended values” became mainstream.

Ms. Chen believes that one of the most pressing issues today is moving the modern world towards a path of sustainability. Born and raised in Hong Kong and now a mother, she says fear motivates her – she wants a better future for her children.

Ms. Annie Chen was educated in the U.S. with a Bachelor of Arts from Brown University and a Masters in LLB from Columbia Law School.

***

Partial Transcript of her interview with Gabrielle Williams, Research Analyst at Collective Responsibility.

Annie: “My name is Annie Chen. I am the principal of a mid-sized family office that’s based in Hong Kong, called RS Group.

For the last six years, we have been on a mission and on a journey. And our hope is to become a catalytic force in transforming our economic system so that it doesn’t jeopardize the well-being of the planet or the people, but will actually us towards a path of sustainable development.

I think different impact investors – that’s just one hat that they wear. They could be a business owner. They could be an employee somewhere, but they have some money to invest, and they want to invest it for impact. They could be large corporates wanting to start a new business line.

So it doesn’t – so “impact investor” doesn’t describe just one type of animal. They can come from everywhere, they can come from any different type of background. So I think it’s really the mindset, is that if you truly believe that you can invest to generate values – and by “values”, I mean not only financial value, but social value and environmental value.

If you believe in that fact, then there’s no reason why you wouldn’t question, say, if you’re a business owner, then “How do I create value – social, environmental, and financial value – through my own business?” Or if I’m an employee, I would ask, “So how is the company that I work in generate all those values? And if it’s not, and if they only think about the financial value, am I in a position to also be a change agent? To start asking questions, like ‘Where is the environmental value that we’re creating? Where is the social value that we’re creating as a business?’”

So I find it interesting that people try to pigeonhole impact investing as just this one thing and kind of miss that, if you buy into impact investing, then you’re, by definition, buying into the fact that investing generates not simply financial returns – but that it could have possible positive social and environmental value generation. And if that’s the case, then why shouldn’t that apply across the board to all kinds of businesses?”

Calling all Financial Inclusion Innovators – Asia-Pacific Challenge

By
Gino Baltazar, MS Finance
-

The Wall Street Journal is inviting nonprofit and for-profit enterprises to enter its third annual  “Financial Inclusion Challenge 2017” competition and is looking for innovators to help people in the Asia-Pacific region to become more “financially free.”  Deadline for entries is on March 22.

The sample video above is the story of San Francisco-based venture capital firm Unitus Impact who is investing in financial startups not in nearby Silicon Valley, but in Vietnam (there are more good videos via the link below)

Why enter?

Create change for communities that need it most.

We are looking for innovative ideas that help people in the Asia-Pacific region to become more financially free. Both nonprofit and for-profit enterprises can apply. Organizations can be based anywhere in the world, but their product or service must focus on the Asia-Pacific region.

What happens next?

Finalists will present their innovations at the Financial Inclusion dinner in Hong Kong, where the winner will be chosen. All finalists will be invited to the first Wall Street Journal D.LIVE technology conference in Asia, where they will network with the biggest names in tech and take part in a workshop session for startup executives.

In addition, MetLife Foundation, the sponsor of the Financial Inclusion Challenge, will consider the finalists for grant funding.

How is it judged?

An independent panel of judges will assess the solutions, their impact on financial inclusion in Asia-Pacific, and how innovative they are relative to the work already being done in the field.

Judges for this year’s Financial Inclusion Challenge include Muhammad Yunus, a microlending pioneer and 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner; and Michael Wiegand, director of the Financial Services for the Poor initiative at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Applicants can be based anywhere in the world, but their product or service must focus on the Asia-Pacific region.

Source: Wall Street Financial Inclusion Challenge

Why the $1.8T Islamic Finance Market Could be your next SRI Funding Source

By
Gino Baltazar, MS Finance
-
The Economist

Islamic Finance, which naturally “embodies” SRI principles owing to strict rules prohibiting investments in tobacco, alcohol, drugs, speculation, gambling has grown fast, tenfold from US$200 billion in 2000 to US$1.8 trillion in a little over 15 years, according to Ibrahim Warde, a professor of international business at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts in the U.S. Its total global AUM is expected to surpass US$3 trillion by 2020.

Why This Matters

With the financing gap for SDG estimated to be at US$218 trillion, just over a percent of the value of global capital markets but still substantial, it is crucial that no “innovative sources of finance and leveraging private investments alongside official development assistance” be left unexplored, UN 20-year veteran and Assistant Secretary General Madgy Martinez Soliman advocates.

The segment is popular and has footprint in Asia in countries like Malaysia and Indonesia and in the Middle East.  The Americas and Australia are potential future markets, and is ripe for growth in Latin America and Europe, according to a CNBC report in December 2016.

Khazanah Nasional based in Malaysia launched its first M$1 billion social-impact AAA-rated sukuk, the Islamic equivalent of bonds, in the last 2 years to go towards educational projects.  Malaysia is the world’s biggest Islamic bond market, accounting for about two thirds of all sukuk sold, according to Reuters, and encourages strict Sharia-compliant financing, according to a Deloitte Finance Energy Report.

Micro-takaful instruments, a type of Islamic micro-insurance, where members pool money together to insure each other against loss or damage, have been deployed in Bangladesh to protect the livelihoods of low-income households, in a country that is chronically ravaged by the planet’s changing climate.

Indonesia announced in September last year that it is ambitiously increasing its issuance of sukuk to around 50% of total debt issuance in 10 years from just 13% last year, responding to what has been a dearth of global sukuk issuance, according to Reuters, despite a surge in sovereign bonds in the Middle East.

Saudi Arabia in February sent an RFP to banks for a US dollar-denominated sukuk, following a large $17.5 billion bond debut in October last year.

In all cases, advocacy groups urge that “impact investing and Islamic finance principles are not incompatible with each other.”

***

“With their rigorous moral and social criteria and emphasis on business-society relations, the principles of Islamic Finance and impact investing are compatible with one another. The two industries resemble each other in a number of ways:

  • First, Islamic Financing and Impact Investing are value-based investment structures. In both of these investment structures, investors associate themselves with a moral purpose: The motto “doing good and avoiding harm to others” which constitutes the main underlying ethical principle of both Islamic Finance and impact investing.
  • Additionally, both Islamic Finance and impact investing share a broader understanding of the relationship between business and society, one which is centered on advancing human well-being. Although both sectors accept that investors must earn acceptable returns from investments, financial returns only constitute one dimension of investment. Islamic and impact investors also seek to create positive social and/or environmental value alongside financial returns. This eliminates the clash of interest between the investor and society.
  • Finally both sectors help build inclusive financial systems which actively integrate the global population that is either directly or indirectly kept out of the formal financial sectors.”

Participants in the market segment and the UNDP are collaborating to share knowledge, formulate policy and promote deals through matchmaking.  It is an encouraging development but may suffer bias in the West, given the current hostile political climate in developed regions like the US or parts of Western Europe.

***

“The Islamic Development Bank and UNDP have established the Global Islamic Finance and Impact Investing Platform (GIFIIP).

The Platform acts as a knowledge hub, a forum for policy dialogue and advocacy, and a marketplace for deal sourcing and matchmaking. It promotes market-based solutions to sustainable development challenges, with the aim of positioning Islamic finance and impact investing as leading enablers of global SDG implementation through private sector engagement.

Key aims include developing appropriate investing tools and instruments, and improving access of impact enterprises to Islamic funding.”

Additional readings:

“Faith-based Finance,” The Economist, http://www.economist.com/node/12052679

“Savings and Souls,” The Economist, http://www.economist.com/node/12052687

“Big Interest, No Interest,” The Economist, Pious and Popular

Two New “Biblically Responsible Investing” ETFs Debut

By
Gino Baltazar, MS Finance
-
Two New ETFs for Biblically Responsible Investors Make Their Debut
Wealth Management

Inspire Investing, based out of Hollister in California, has rolled out two new Large Cap and Small-Mid Cap ETFs designed to appeal to Evangelical Christians, a potential market worth over $13 trillion according to its own research.

Notably, the ETFs are attempting to utilize measurement practices based on “Biblically Responsible Investing” or BRI and which are disclosed on their prospectus.

Exclusionary Screening

Among the practices listed in the funds prospectus that will be used to screen out investments – “abortion, gambling, alcohol, pornography or the LGBT lifestyle.”

Inspire also plans to, later this year, launch a corporate bond ETF based on the same investing methodology.

ESG and SRI ETFs, or Sustainable and Responsible Investing Exchange Traded Funds, are collectively a growing class of impact investment vehicles.

According to BlackRock, much of this increasing demand is driven by millennials and women; both demographics have an interest in sustainability and impact outcomes, in addition to financial returns.

***

“The Inspire Global Hope Large Cape ETF (BLES) tracks Inspire’s Global Hope Large Cap Equal Weight Index, including companies with a market capitalization of $10 billion or more. The Inspire Small/Mid Cap Impact ETF (ISMD) tracks Inspire’s Small/Mid Cap Impact Equal Weight Index, including companies with market capitalizations spanning from $1 billion to $3.5 billion.

The indexes were developed using Inspire’s impact screen, which applies BRI standards , factoring out investments that conflict with Evangelical values and ranking remaining companies by how well they generate impact in areas important to Christians—including human trafficking relief efforts, Bible distribution, and clean water projects. 

Companies with participation in abortion, gambling, alcohol, pornography or the “LGBT lifestyle” will be factored out of the new funds, according to their prospectus. Moreover, ties to countries sponsoring terrorism, poor labor practices and human rights violations against Christians will also result in a company being factored out.

CEO Robert Netzly said these ETFs and BRI in general have a broader appeal beyond Christian values-based investors.

“We built BRI to be the Chick-Fil-A of investing,” said Netzly. “You don’t go in and ask for a Christian chicken sandwich; you ask for a good sandwich.”

Over the last decade however, faith-based ETFs haven’t had much success. Notably, in 2011, FaithShares shut down each of its five ETFs, tailored to sects of Christianity, and a Sharia-compliant ETF developed by Javelin shut down in 2010.

Another big issue has been high expense ratios which, in the case of FaithShares, were close to 90 basis points. Faith-based mutual funds also tend to have above-average expense ratios.

Netzly said the Inspire funds will hit the market with a 65-basis point fee and by the end of the year should be in the mid-40s, making it lower than the industry average for ETFs.

Impact Investing February Roundup

By
Gino Baltazar, MS Finance
-
February Roundup
Pacific Community Ventures

Good February summary of impact investing news from various influencers via Pacific Community Ventures. Among the areas covered are the strides impact-driven foundations continue to make, and the momentum being reported, despite continued debate, of for-profit enterprises’ adoption of SDG and of investors adoption of ESG, practices.

The tone is notably optimistic, but realistically there is much more work to do.  For example, this week as new consumer products and technologies like AI are being touted at the Mobile World Congress event in Spain, mindfully, some of these products, Samsung in particular, “utilize 1.5 million underpaid and unprotected labor in developing countries,” according to at least one advocacy site.

At the Economist Impact Investing event in New York in February, Nancy Pfund, a managing partner at DBL, criticized larger institutions and said their “lack of aggressiveness in impact investing was holding back the asset class.”

San Francisco-based OpenInvest, also in February, launched a feature to expose which banking institutions are investing in the Dakota Pipeline, a controversial project that protesters say will harm local water supplies, the environment and cause oil spills, and which in turn caused the city of Seattle to cut ties with Wells Fargo.

And as reported in January, with the US administration expected to divert its federal government budget to its national security and defense sectors, funding for purpose-driven projects will shift – private (foundations and family offices) and local sector (city/state driven like CDFIs) impacting investment funds are expected to pick up the slack, based on recent analysis by Forest Trends.

Elsewhere, governments in other developed countries, like Australia and New Zealand are experimenting with utilizing social impact bonds to help get homeless communities in their cities into jobs.

***

More Investing in Women-Owned Enterprises

More than $560 million is invested with a “gender lens” in public equities and debt, up five-fold since 2014. That’s great news and seems like a lot of money — until you measure it against the opportunity: $28 trillion. That’s the potential addition to global GDP by 2025 if women participated equally in the global economy, according to an estimate by McKinsey Global Institute. The 26 percent boost to the global economy is equal to the size of the U.S. and Chinese economies combined. Read more on Impact Alpha >

Foundations put their assets to work and are expanding

Foundations have an important role to play in impact investing—in building platforms and products that efficiently mobilize capital, mitigate risk, and improve liquidity. Julia Stasch of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation writes that foundations need to being market making for their missions. In addition to their traditional grantmaking of about $250 million each year, they’ve expanded their impact investing strategy, working in new ways and tapping a dedicated pool of $500 million to help make the global impact investment marketplace more inclusive, efficient, and effective. Read more in Stanford Social Innovation Review >

Kate Wolford of the McKnight Foundation echoes this. Most foundations have endowments with invested assets—but many don’t see themselves as institutional investors. As a result, they are leaving behind some of their influence. The philanthropic community, she writes, should change the lenses through which they choose to see themselves to include institutional investor, and it could very well open the door to powerful new networks, new conversations, and new market-driven strategies. Read ore on Stanford Social Innovation Review >

One example comes from the Annie E Casey Foundation. To bring more resources to bear on the challenges facing children and families, funders can step outside their traditional grantmaking role to invest in innovative and mission-focused efforts. Our friend Patrick McCarthy from the foundation talks about how they began exploring social investing in the late 1990s as a way to put even more assets to work in advancing their mission, without jeopardizing the foundation’s long-term viability. Casey saw this kind of investment, using a percentage of their endowment to finance projects beyond the limits of their grant budget, as another tool to advance their mission. Read more in Stanford Social Innovation Review >

Banks and Funds are increasingly leveraging UN Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs)

An estimated $5-7 trillion a year until 2030 are needed to realize the SDGs worldwide, including investments into infrastructure, clean energy, water and sanitation and agriculture. Blended finance, venture capital, impact investing, crowd funding and environmentally or socially oriented market instruments such as green bonds are among a range of mechanisms designed to bridge the gap, but none of the current approaches seem sufficient to reach the necessary scale. Now, 19 banks and investors launch financing principles aimed at funding the UN sustainable development goals with $7 trillion. Read more on the UN >

Corporate-driven programs are rising

The report cites over 25 case studies of giants such as Nissan, Unilever, Mahindra, Ericsson and Merck, as well as ‘disruptive innovators’ like Safaricom’s M-Pesa, TransferWise, Peek Vision, and Bla Bla Car — which have successfully tapped into opportunities by addressing some of the world’s most pressing challenges such as climate change, economic inequality, and the gender gap. Read more on Triple Pundit >

From sustainable “blue economy” projects to restoration projects for wetlands, streams, and animal habitats, conservation-related projects have been drawing a significant amount of investor money in recent years. Investments that produce a financial return and a “measurable environmental result” climbed 62% from 2013-2015, according to a new report from Forest Trends, indicating that traditional divisions between conservation, philanthropy and for-profit finance may be withering. Read more at Fast Company >

More opportunities in 2017

Impact investing is expanding, and that is creating new opportunities for social enterprises, including Benefit Corporations, women-led firms and community-based ventures. For the first time since the study was started in 1995, gender lens investing was tracked separately. The advancement of women is a factor for $397 billion in institutional investor assets and nearly $132 billion in money manager assets. Another growing trend has been a focus on place-based investing, especially in underserved communities. Community investing institution assets grew by almost 90%, from $64 billion to nearly $122 billion. Read more on Locavesting >

 

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