Impact Investing at a Crossroads: A Pathway Forward

Resolving the conflict between making money and making the world a better place, this book is a step-by-step guide to how impact investing can achieve its promise of transforming global investments into a powerful positive force for change.

Impact investing has shown great promise as a major transformational investment paradigm, but the sector is under-performing and its prospects are dimming: it comprises less than 1% of the world’s equity investments, and too many claims of success are more about marketing and reputational value than hard evidence of social impact. Drawing on over a decade of hands-on experience in developing new models, frameworks, techniques, and toolkits, this book is a unique combination of a how-to guide and cutting-edge ideas for enhancing current impact investment practices, to achieve greater financial ROI, social impact, and risk mitigation. Through the Social Innovation Model for Partnerships (SIMPle) Approach, readers will learn what actions should be taken at each stage of impact investing, and which models, analytic frameworks, and techniques to use - and how to use them - for optimal results.

This is a clear and comprehensive resource for anyone who needs to understand how impact investing works and how it can be done better, from professionals at foundations, international NGOs, consulting firms, and government agencies, to students of finance, public policy, and international affairs.

John J. Forrer, Director, Institute for Corporate Responsibility; Research Professor, Strategic Management and Public Policy; and Associate Faculty, School of Public Policy and Public Administration at George Washington University. He leads the activities of the ICR and teaches, and conducts research on corporate social responsibility, economic sanctions, sustainable supply chains, public-private partnerships, business and peace, ESG and impact investing.

Terry R. Gray has been working internationally in the field of impact investing for the past fifteen years. He is currently the Executive Director at Impact Bridges Group, a professional service social enterprise, that specialize in investment appraisal, risk analysis, impact measurement and management of social and economic development projects and small and growing business.