Impact Investing Publications

Our work includes in-depth articles and reports on getting started with impact investing, the role it can play in the world, and how to measure its effectiveness. We publish on Bridgespan.org and in a number of leading business and nonprofit publications, including Harvard Business Review, ImpactAlpha, and Stanford Social Innovation Review.

Recent Highlights

Our most recent work and core research.

Want to Advance Diversity, Racial Equity, and Inclusion Goals Through Your Investing? Here Are Three Questions to Ask

This framework from Mission Investors Exchange offers an approach to “disrupting unjust flows of capital” and proposes three questions for examining investment strategy, allocation of capital, and results with regard to diversity, equity, and inclusion goals.

Impact Investing Sector Series

Impact Investors and the Coming Energy Sector Transformation

Impact investors are putting more money into the energy sector than any other. Here's what our work analyzing over 70 potential investments found.

Why the World Needs Both ESG and Impact Investing

While both impact investing and ESG investing can deliver compelling financial returns, there are some key differences between the two. Understanding these can help impact investors make better investment decisions and avoid "impact washing."

Other Publications

Sector Series

Impact Investing: Sector Themes

This series of short articles, drawn from our due diligence work for over 1,200 potential impact investments, explores best practices, themes, and trends we've observed across several sectors.

ImpactAlpha

Family office opportunities for impact-first investments in racial equity and justice

If only a fraction more of the wealth managed by family offices was directed toward equity and justice, it could have a considerable impact.

Impact Investing Sector Series

What Drives Impact Investing in Food and Agriculture?

Investing in smallholder farmers and solutions to store carbon are just two ways impact investors are advancing social and environmental progress through the food and ag sector.

Beyond the Grant: Foundations as Impact Investors

Philanthropy can bring its whole self to work with an impact investing mindset that expands horizons beyond grantmaking alone.

ImpactAlpha

How to Unlock the Value of Diversity and Inclusion in Impact Investing

Diversity, equity, and inclusion is too often undervalued by investors.

Three Ways for Impact Investors to Respond to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic

Impact investors have a critical opportunity to help their portfolio companies navigate the coronavirus pandemic.

The Role of Evidence in Impact Investing

How to put evidence center stage when deploying capital in pursuit of impact.

Stanford Social Innovation Review

Philanthropy’s New Frontier—Impact Investing

As impact investors, philanthropy should focus on sustainable social enterprises often overlooked by those seeking market-rate returns.

Private Capital, Public Good: How Smart Federal Policy Can Galvanize Impact Investing

Simply put, impact investing generates measurable, beneficial social or environmental impacts alongside financial returns.

Younger Donors, Impact Investing, and the Blurring Lines Between Business and Philanthropy

"I’ve always found it delightful to push people’s conventional thinking, to be a little contrarian," says philanthropist and eBay founder Pierre Omidyar.

How Individual Donors and Family Offices Can Use Impact-First Investing to Catalyze Climate Solutions

Contrary to what they might assume, individual and family-office impact investors can make a real difference in combating climate change.

Back to the Frontier: Investing that Puts Impact First

Wealthy individuals and families are uniquely positioned to fill the middle ground between market-rate impact investments and philanthropic grants.

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