Week 1: Kick Off
Kick-Off and Introductions - Why we are here? What is Impact Investing?
In week 1, we’re getting to know YOU, the felllows, and aim at giving you some context about the goals and purposes of the Fellowship program and what's in store for you.
Resources on NEIII & the background of the program
In our first skill session on Friday, Lubna Maria Elia (founder of NEIII) introduces herself. Here is her chat with the spring 2024 cohort about her journey in the impact investing space with helpful context to working in this sector.
📹 Impact Investing Ecosystem with Lubna Maria Elia - Fellowship session Spring'24
Also in the spring, Adwoa Asare (NEIII board member) sat with us to share her understanding of the ecosystem of the impact investing space. Adwoa is also the program coordinator for the MIINT program and a great connection in the space. She introduces the program and the Bridges Foundation, a partner of NEIII, in the session. Adwoa shares resources and information to help you get more involved in the sector.
📹 Turner MIINT Impact Program Presentation - Fellowship session Spring'24
Week 1 is also a good time to get familiar with the topic of Impact Investing. What has first started as a method to apply religious principles to how we want to guide the world, has really grown to a robust industry working to influence investment decision-making from just purely financial considerations. The following resources will give you a good foundation to see that impact investing as a narrower aspect of sustainable investing and has evolved out of this space as a way to align values with investment decisions.
The definition of impact investing, like sustainable finance, depends on the context and the speaker. So there are many definitions and grappling with the nuances of what people really mean when they say “sustainable” or “impact” is really important to consider. One definition we use:
Impact investments are investments made with the intention to generate positive, measurable social and/or environmental impact alongside a financial return. (Global Impact Investing NetworkGIIN)
The key point here is generating social and environmental changes that are positive. And the financial consideration is considered alongside instead of as the primary or sole consideration. Impact investing is different in this way from traditional investing. In this program we will go deeper into this difference and see how there are different levels to the impact created as many investors can be classified as either impact first or profit first.
To really define and understand impact investing, the Impact Principles devised 9 operating principles to a framework for investors for the design and implementation of their impact management systems, ensuring that impact considerations are integrated throughout the investment lifecycle.
A dditionally, we’ll see how different kinds of impact can be created and invested in. There are different frameworks out there to help you understand, measure, quantify, and relate that impact to others. IRIS+ is one such framework that has grown in popularity and this gives a great overview of what they consider as the 5 dimensions of impact.
In the coming weeks we are going to go a lot deeper into these topics. We will discuss our own principles of impact, and how we use them to create change in our lives and community. We’ll explore the intricacies of operationalizing different kinds of impact and the process to invest in these processes. To get there, we need to understand how to manage impact at each stage of the investment process using what has been coined as IMM - Impact Measurement and Management.
Resources on Impact Investing (addition to Community Call 1)
Definitions:
🧾 IRIS+ - THE FIVE DIMENSIONS OF IMPACT
🧾The Impact Principles -9 operating principles of impact investing
History:
🧾Morningstar - The history of sustainable investing
Impact Measurement & Management (IMM):
📹 Week 1 Recordings
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