Impact Investing is the next generation of meaningful investing. The call to care is resounding around the globe.
Today’s consumers want to make purchases from businesses that care about the causes that mean the most to them.
No longer is it enough to make a one-time donation to a local charity. Consumers seek commitment from the businesses they support.
The answer to this new intrinsic demand is impact investment.
The term is growing in popularity, and future-focused businesses form and shape what it looks like to impact investment.
So, what is impact investing? What makes it so novel or different? And, while it is growing in popularity, so many still say, “Impact Investing? What’s that?”
WHAT IS IMPACT INVESTING?
Simply put, impact investing is an organizational commitment to supporting causes that make lasting social change.
These changes will have both an immediate and future impact for the good of all.
The idea of impact investing is not as new as one might think. The Gilded Era of American enterprise was the prehistoric version of impact investors, known as great philanthropists.
John Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, and a few others created endowments that still fund many Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Land Grant Universities, Museums, community organizations, and other structured organizations that remain to this day.
Why did they do this?
These early American billionaires aimed to make sure communities surrounded by their businesses flourished with adequate support.
Capitalism favors the strong, but it should not crush those who find themselves in a weaker position.
Philanthropy addresses the lives of the less fortunate and seeks to help their situation.
Today, the impact investor is ahead of the trend. In other words, the impact investor of today is future-focused.
The 21st Century impact investor sees what may appear as a creek but seeks to prevent it from becoming a river. Stopping catastrophe is considered more conscious than dealing with a colossal one.
The ideas associated with impact investing include:
- Conscience Capitalism
- Ethical Enterprise
- Intentional Investment
Al Gore, a former Vice President and Presidential candidate, led the way from the Gilded Era philanthropist to the 21st Century impact investor. Al Gore’s documentary, An Inconvenient Truth focused on troubling environmental changes more than a decade ago.
While unveiling an obvious danger that many did not understand at the time, Gore promised to address these problems.
He founded Generation Investment Management in 2004.
Today GIM manages over $17 billion, primarily inequities. It takes money to change the world, and Gore intends to ensure that the world is suitable for living long after he is gone. Again, the impact investor is future-focused.
IMPACT INVESTING IS A MEANINGFUL APPROACH TO THE MARKET
Impact investing is growing in popularity. Today’s consumer demands financial and social involvement from the businesses they frequent. But its popularity is also a market approach.
Investors seek to place money in funds associated with or created to impact a global, national, or local circumstance.
GIIN, the Global Impact Investors Network, reports nearly $230 billion in investment assets, 50% growth from 2019. Toniic, a global investment club for impact investors, has grown from $1.65 billion in 2016 to over $2.5 billion today.
These numbers show the impact of impact investing in regards to the market. Impact investing is not a mere donation, but an intentional investment into the good of the environment and its people.
The use of capital in this way is less selfish and more contributory. It’s no longer sufficient to demand a return on capital and share a portion of that return with the global community.
What good are positive returns if the air one breathes are toxic?
What Impact is Impact Investing Having?
It is one thing for a corporation to give; it is another to invest in others. Investment requires commitment.
Impact investing is one of the leading forces to face and combat the globe’s most significant problems.
Many of these problems plague multiple countries, either directly or indirectly. For example:
- Refugee crises
- Climate Change
- Extreme Weather Events
- Reducing Air Pollution in urban areas
- Plastics in the World’s Oceans
- Clean Energy
- Sustainable Food Production
- Hunger
- Quality and Meaningful Education
- Healthcare
The list could extend for multiple pages, but these problems generated enormous news coverage.
As a result, investors engage, which solves many issues.
Impact investors are drawn to these problems and not only provide financial investment, but also get involved with causes addressing these problems. It is this dual activity that is much different from the 1st generation impact investors who provided financial resources but no personal time.
IMPACT INVESTMENTS YIELDS COMPETITIVE RETURNS
The 21st Century has created a host of challenges and problems that only the global community can solve.
Many investors recognize this reality and have committed to facing the challenges together. The idea that goodwill is unprofitable is no more.
Quite the contrary is true: charity and benevolence coupled with purposeful action generate both profit and resolution.
Academic research confirms that what is best for people and their environment is best for business.
Thus, today’s 21st-century investor wants to frequent businesses that have partnered with local causes to ensure the good of all.
Some decry socialism. However, socialism does not bolster the kind of profits impact investments are generating.
So, it can not be a socialist idea.
It is quite the opposite. It is capitalism at its best. Capitalism with care.
Competition, quality goods, and services, significant sums of investment dollars all circulating in communities throughout the world offering both great returns on investment and improved living conditions for many.
SHARED HOUSING IN THE ERA OF IMPACT INVESTMENT
Impact investing is revolutionizing the market, raising an enormous amount of capital to combat economic and ecological issues.
However, impact investing takes on a different look at the local level, but with the same effect.
Shared Housing is quickly becoming a significant impact investment strategy for those who want to create change in their communities.
National changes associated with unemployment, increased housing costs and pandemic fallout has expanded the prevalence of those with housing insecurity. Homelessness is on the rise and much of this is due to factors outside of an individual’s ability to control.
Shared housing is the method by which investors can provide quality housing for the community’s most vulnerable citizens.
Government resources are available for those investors who seek to solve the housing crisis at the local level.
Local investors can move with agility to relieve the community’s pain related to housing insecurity, which ultimately deteriorates the community.
The Shared Housing Academy trains investors to make meaningful, lasting investments in their communities.
Understanding the shifts in demographics, economics, and spending at the local level can rescue a community from economic collapse and increasing crime.
Shared Housing provides living accommodations for those most in need of quality living
conditions. Some examples of this population include:
- Veterans
- Battered women
- Single Mothers
- Addiction Recovery
- And more
To learn more about becoming an impact investor at the local level, where you can physically see and experience your investment dollars at work for good, contact the Shared Housing Academy today.
Visit www.SharedHousingAcademy.com now, and make the change you want to see in your community