To: peterbnyc@gmail.com
Dear GIIN partner,
Later this year, the GIIN will celebrate five years as the leading nonprofit dedicated to increasing the scale and effectiveness of impact investing around the world. With 2014 already off to a busy start for impact investors, I want to take a moment to thank you for your support and partnership. We are proud of the tremendous progress made in the impact investment field since our launch, and we look forward to continued collaboration in the year ahead.
Recent Milestones
PROVIDING FIELD LEADERSHIP
In June last year, the GIIN organized, in partnership with Omidyar Network and Big Society Capital Chairman Sir Ronald Cohen, a G8 letter of support for impact investing, which was signed by over 90 impact investing leaders, distributed at the G8 Social Impact Investment Forum, and published in the Financial Times.
The GIIN has continued to collaborate with the G8 Social Impact Investment Taskforce, serving as a member of its US National Advisory Board and as Co-Chair of its Impact Measurement Working Group.
Serving as the foremost leadership network for impact investors, the GIIN Investors’ Council participated in a number of important field-building initiatives, including advising and contributing to GIIN research, setting an example of best practice in transparency and accountability by listing their performance metrics on the IRIS registry, and championing impact measurement broadly.
CONVENING AND COLLABORATING
In 2013, the GIIN partnered with the City of London Corporation to convene the first-ever GIIN Investor Forum, which attracted more than 400 impact investors from 38 countries.
In our first full year of Network Membership, our global membership grew to 136 organizations in 27 countries, supported by our membership team and three European Liaisons.
We also launched an online portal for GIIN Members, enabling them to easily find and network directly with impact investment organizations around the world.
As a core part of our mission as a field-building network, we continued to develop and strengthen partnerships with like-minded groups, including Mission Investors Exchange and B-Lab, as well as the UK Department for International Development and a consortium of development finance institutions.
PUBLISHING CRITICAL INFORMATION AND RESOURCES FOR THE FIELD
The GIIN published the third annual impact investor survey, Perspectives on Progress, a research report co-authored with JP Morgan. The report reveals the experiences and perceptions of 99 impact investors in 2012, as well as their expectations for 2013.
We celebrated the second anniversary of ImpactBase, an global directory of impact investment funds and products now with more than 280 profiles and over 1,380 subscribers, and recently called “one of the more established resources for sourcing impact investments” in a report by Cambridge Associates.
We launched Catalytic First Loss Capital, an issue brief highlighting the use of first-loss capital, a form of credit enhancement, in impact investing transactions at the GIIN Investor Forum.
The GIIN managed the Impact Economy Innovations Fund, a grant fund supporting projects that promote impact investing infrastructure and foster entrepreneurial ecosystems in Africa, in partnership with The Rockefeller Foundation and The Tony Elumelu Foundation,
ADVANCING IMPACT MEASUREMENT AS A CORE COMPONENT OF IMPACT INVESTING
In its first year, the IRIS Registry grew to 112 registered organizations who publicly disclose the IRIS metrics they use to measure and track their social, environmental, and financial performance. Through their work, these organizations have an estimated reach to more than 6,000 social and environmental enterprises also using IRIS.
The GIIN launched IRIS Data Briefs, a new publication series that presents aggregated social, environmental, and financial results of more than 4,000 organizations receiving impact investment capital.
Through partnerships and alignment projects, we ensured that IRIS metrics are compatible with a wide variety of platforms and reporting systems including B Analytics and the Microfinance Information Exchange (MIX), as well as those promoted by the National Community Investment Fund (NCIF), the Finance Alliance for Sustainable Trade (FAST), and the Center for Health Market Innovations (CHMI).
Building on this momentum and utilizing the GIIN’s unique position to advance the impact investing field, we are eager to continue our work in 2014 when we will:
- Bring increased clarity to the definition and key components of impact investing, including the many diverse investor segments that comprise this market
- Continue leadership in impact measurement through the G8, the G20, and other platforms
- Increase usability and scale of ImpactBase as a resource for accredited investors, with additional benefits for GIIN members who subscribe to the platform
- Increase support for emerging fund managers, with a focus on those in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia
- Dig deeper into a variety of research topics, including financial returns in impact investing and comprehensive impact investing landscaping studies for specific geographies, including the community investing sector in the United States
- Provide ongoing opportunities to convene and collaborate in global locations at events organized by GIIN European Liaisons, and new Global Liaisons who will expand on-the-ground presence in the Global South
- Continue to increase awareness and knowledge about impact investing by leading practitioner sessions and speaking at key industry convenings around the world
It has been exciting and gratifying to see how far the impact investment market has come in just a few years, but of course there is much more work to be done. These are still early days, and those prone to sporting analogies might say that the impact investment market is still in pre-season.
As we embark upon another industrious year, we look forward to continued collaboration with you to foster a market that can effectively and efficiently channel capital to address some of the world’s most pressing social and environmental challenges.
Sincerely,
Luther M. Ragin, Jr.
President & Chief Executive Officer
Global Impact Investing Network
Copyright © 2014 Global Impact Investing Network, All rights reserved.
You are receiving this email as a friend of the GIIN.
Our mailing address is:
Global Impact Investing Network
30 Broad Street, 38th Floor
New York, NY 10004
|
The text being discussed is available at
|
