Toniic's New Early Stage Impact Investing eGuide is a real roadmap

I read Toniic's new eGuide to Early Stage Impact Investing yesterday and was happy to see that it is full of helpful and specific information about how to do this very important work.  In contrast to some impact investing guides which operate at an more poetic level, this guide is really wired to answer very concrete questions and describes a clear process from theory of change to evaluation.

It focuses on early stage investing, but the framework is applicable to all impact investing.

http://www.toniic.com/toniic-institute/early-stage-e-guide/

White House Update on Pay for Success

Jonathan Greenblatt's recent post from the White House's Center for Social Innovation and Civic Participation is a good summary of the federal government's current approach to pay for success (PFS) aka social impact bonds.  The relatively slow rollout of PFS also highlights the challenges of leading from the top for an instrument which is typically built on local service provision.

Building a Smarter, More Efficient Government through “Pay for Success” | The White House

Is Coal the New Tobacco for Shareholder Engagement?

The divestment movement among shareholders is now targeting fossil fuels as a new category of (environmental) sin stocks.  Although climate change legislation seems dead in the water, a new movement is calling for institutional investors to divest from fossil fuels.  As the proverbial long-term investors, pension funds and endowments are increasingly moving away from dirty fuels - not an easy thing to do within traditional asset allocation models.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-20/coal-seen-as-new-tobacco-sparking-investor-backlash-commodities.html

New Entrants Coming to the Social Impact Bond Market

Jessica Toonkel from Reuters outlines the latest news from the SIB market as new players and transactions begin to compete with Goldman Sachs in this new sector.  

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/sns-rt-us-goldman-social-impact-bond-analysis-20131112,0,5959128.story?page=1

Corporate Lemonade Stands and Corporate Structure

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/11/12/in-a-lemonade-stand-a-transformation-of-the-corporation/?smid=pl-share

NASDAQ for Nonprofits

How can nonprofits most efficiently raise capital?  This ongoing debate continues as the NYT mixes aggregating capital for non-profits with pay for success financings.  

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/11/11/plan-to-finance-philanthropy-shows-the-power-of-a-simple-question/?smid=pl-share

What happens to certification programs when large corporations and suppliers are on different sides of the issue.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/22/business/salmon-fishermen-battle-walmart-on-certification.html?smid=pl-share

The Economics of Rubbish

http://www.economist.com/news/international/21588889-one-mans-waste-anothers-livelihood-mucking

The Dance of NGOs and Corporations

http://www.economist.com/news/business/21588853-charities-are-irritating-often-help-companies-do-right-thing-butterfly-effect

Bill Gates and the Importance of Boring Details

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/dacd1f84-41bf-11e3-b064-00144feabdc0.html