Social impact

Three like-minded European impact investors joined forces to back Light Microfinance. The Indian lender helps women in poor rural areas achieve their business dreams.

Convergence Partners invests in better and cheaper internet access in Sub-Saharan Africa. “We treat a whole block in a township as if it’s a single home in a higher-income suburb”, says CEO Brandon Doyle on how to combine impact with financial profit.

Hussein Sefian, the founding partner of Acre Impact Capital, has a ‘big idea’: leveraging export credit finance to mobilise capital that can help solve Africa’s lack of critical infrastructure, from clean water to energy.

A new impact investment fund, Impact 12, aims to finance mission-led social ventures coming out of UK universities, for which traditional funding models do not provide high enough levels of support during their early-stage development.

In the slipstream of the hugely popular green bonds, social bonds are now also reaching record levels. So what makes the recently launched $177.5mn social bond ‘Financing for Healthier Lives’ special?

A growing demand for sustainable fashion prompts brands and retailers to change the way they work. The Good Fashion Fund wants to give manufacturers access to capital and expertise to scale up the new way of making clothes.

It’s a new buzzword in Brussels. Social outcome contracting is seen by the European Commission as a tool for orchestrating social change, with the potential to unlock large amounts of private investment.

In Finland, social impact bonds are showing success in tackling long-term employment. Jussi Nykänen, a co-founder of FIM Impact Investment, the first impact investment fund management company in the Nordics, explains how.

Cultural institutions get all the more recognised for their ability to promote social cohesion and cultural diversity. If ever there’s a high urgency to invest in the arts, you could say it is now. Britain’s National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, Nesta, is showing how.

To learn more about the different types of impact investing, we spoke to the European Venture Philanthropy Association, which works with foundations to explore how they can use all of their assets for social good.