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

Forbes Interview with World Economic Forum Impact Investing Report Authors

http://www.forbes.com/sites/devinthorpe/2013/09/24/report-authors-share-impact-investing-highlights-live/

Ben Thornley on Mainstreaming Impact Investing

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ben-thornley/the-question-of-mainstrea_b_3949731.html

As part of SOCAP, the Federal Reserve of San Francisco hosted a series of sessions on building health-related impact investing products and partnerships. A great resource for those interested in this massive sector.

http://www.frbsf.org/community-development/events/2013/september/socap-social-capital-markets-health/videos/

Interesting New Impact Investing Report from the World Economic Forum.

http://reports.weforum.org/impact-investment/

Impact Investing 2.0 -- What $3 Billion Tells Us About the Next $300 Billion

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cathy-clark/impact-investing_b_3850296.html

A Nice Summary of Events at SOCAP

Recognition of the Viability of Social Impact Investment and Business Models Shows Signs of Global Critical Mass as Social Enterprise Community Heads to SOCAP13 – Press Releases on CSRwire.com

Interesting Impact Investing Platform for Solar

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/03/business/energy-environment/a-firm-that-aims-to-match-environmental-values-with-financial-value.html?smid=pl-share

Is the Tragedy of the Commons Really a Tragedy?

The FT's Tim Harford highlights two sides of a very important academic debate on how we can address environmental issues.  He compares Garrett Hardin's 1958 "Tragedy of the Commons" approach to Lin Ostrom's focus on how communities solve the challenges of sharing resources by creating systems and rules.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/afc5377e-1026-11e3-a258-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2dk2XoC4A

Internalizing Externalities to Address Climate Change

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/01/business/a-carbon-tax-that-america-could-live-with.html?smid=pl-share

Is there a hierarchy of goodness in public policy?

Melissa Berman of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors makes clear the challenges of using philanthropy for large social change.

But specifically because philanthropy is personal and voluntary, it may supplement - but cannot replace - the rigorous, messy public debate we need in a democracy to decide how we as citizens want to choose between museums and fighting blindness.

Too often, private philanthropy is used to drive the allocation of public resources.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/20/opinion/in-charitable-giving-no-hierarchy-of-goodness.html?smid=pl-share