Publications
Explore our articles and core researchBridgespan Social Impact Publications about Impact Investing
Our work includes in-depth articles and reports on getting started with impact investing, the role it can play in the world, and how to measure its effectiveness. We publish in a number of leading business and social-impact publications, including the Harvard Business Review and ImpactAlpha.
For Outsized Impact, Investors Should Look to Africa
For institutional impact investors, Africa is the new frontier. Rich in economic potential, the continent also offers fertile soil for investors interested in seeing their capital put to use addressing social and environmental challenges such as climate change, economic disparities, and gender inequality. And, thanks to new approaches to impact, measurement, and management pioneered in Africa, such investors can now measure the difference they’re making in the world with a precision once reserved for financial returns.
Opportunities for Impact Investors Interested in Africa
A companion guide “For Outsized Impact, Investors Should Look to Africa,” these lists can help investors find investment funds and opportunities in Africa and learn effective practices in the region. The lists include african fund managers where institutional investors can invest through African funds that are catalyzing outsized impact and focused on delivering commercial returns as well as global funders and regional industry groups where institutional investors can learn effective practices from organizations with experience in the region. The lists are non-exhaustive, and much of the information is from the organizations’ website. We encourage you to do additional research to identify other proximate players doing remarkable work in this space.
Capricorn Investment Group
Capricorn’s Sustainable Investors Fund makes early-stage investments in innovative asset-management firms to help propel their work on environmental and social issues.
How Private Credit Investors Can Get a Grip on Impact
Private credit investors have a huge opportunity to point their portfolios towards impact, writes Michael Etzel, partner and co-head of impact investing at consulting firm Bridgespan.
How Value-Creation Plans Can Put More “Impact” in “Impact Investing”
Significant opportunities exist for institutional impact investors looking to place impact at the heart of their portfolio company engagement. We share three lessons from our experiences and conversations with leading impact investors on how to do this most effectively.
Getting Money off the Sidelines: A Starting List to Invest for Racial Equity
As more investors seek to direct capital toward racial equity, here’s a starter list to help.
Why Mainstream Private Equity Firms Should Consider Launching an Impact Investing Vehicle
Three reasons why private equity firms should consider launching an impact investing vehicle.
Venture Capital’s Next Unicorn? Impact
As more venture capitalists fund entrepreneurs who strive to make a difference for people and the planet, they’re finding impact measurement to be a thorny problem. A simple framework can help them become better impact investors.
A Case for Debt Financing in Indian Impact Enterprises
At only 25 percent of total investing, Indian impact enterprises struggle to find the working capital they need to grow and fulfill their potential.
Calculating the Value of Impact Investing
Impact investing—directing capital to ventures that are expected to yield social and environmental benefits as well as profits—provides investors with a way to “do well by doing good.” But whereas the business world has tools for estimating a potential investment’s
How TPG’s Rise Fund underwrites impact to guide its global investments
The global impact investing market doubled to $228 billion in 2017 and now counts among its supporters both many of the world’s largest asset managers as well as asset owners.
How Smart Federal Policy Can Galvanize Impact Investing — and Why It’s Urgent
As part of the June 2013 G8 meeting, an international effort was undertaken to explore the possibilities for impact investing to accelerate economic growth and to address some of society’s most important issues.