Social Impact Investing Had a Breakout Year
In 2011, investors started to get serious about combining financial return with social impact. Impact investors shared their approach with GOOD readers. New tools, like the Global Impact Investment Rating System premiered this year to help investors identify which funds and companies are providing the most value, which brought with it an obsession on measurement for social enterprises that need to establish their bona fides. This kind of rigor helped increase the real talk in the sector, with some arguing that some famous projects aren’t paying off; for instance, the LifeStraw is a dumb idea. And to help get the next group of innovators off the ground, we gave social entrepreneurs a set of do’s and don’ts to help them find funding for their fledgling projects.
