I. Paths Become Straight

Crisis on the brink of disaster

Professionals warn: the world is inevitably creeping into a slowdown crisis. It would seem, is good so hostile to the best? A thin growth is more comfortable than a good decline ...

But stagnation is possible only “in one single country”, which at once falls out of the world race. It is no coincidence that the dying slogan of the USSR was "acceleration" - at any cost.

History remembers: a slowdown in growth is the threshold of social catastrophes. To resist, the world, according to Carroll, is doomed to run at full speed. As soon as the supply of social benefits slows down, the shadow of an overtaking demand hangs behind.
In contrast to the benevolent curves in the schemes of economics, real conflicts of supply and demand are resolved with great bloodshed. The growth of supply is cyclical, while demand is growing non-stop: in poor countries - along with the population, in rich countries - along with progress. Only a social catastrophe stops him, devouring the population and undermining progress, coupled with faith in it.
Demographic explosions and ecological spasms, the impoverishment of pastures and arable lands are destroying the balance of attack and defense forces, tearing masses of people from their homes. The story is inexhaustible in plots, in the end of which there are waves of migration of tribes and invasions of the peoples of the sea, Amorites and Ottomans, Vikings and Huns, the “scourge of God”.

In the 19th century, strikes became more frequent. Financial crises, interrupting the rise in production, turned into revolutions of the 1848 model, when a whirlwind passed through Europe.

By the beginning of the last century, capital markets ran into each other, they had nowhere to grow. The epochal meaning of the exhaustion of expansion space was shown and predicted by the economist Marx.

The response of the social element to the halt in growth is a monstrous sandwich of two world wars with an interlayer of revolutions, depressions and devastation. The battles on the Marne, at Verdun, on the Somme, the Entente offensive in 1917 and the Germans in the spring of 1918 - each of those meat grinders was more voracious than the largest natural disasters in history. The "interwar" time turned out to be more deadly than the First World War. The second surpassed her in bloodthirstiness three times ...

The stump of demand fell out of the Procrustean guillotine of supply. And the dawn of post-war growth and economic miracles dawned over the battlefields. From Tsushima to Hiroshima, it took forty years for the curves of Marshall's law to meet with the planned support of a namesake general.

Few witnesses to this cosmic drama are still alive. But the narrow-minded memory suffers from amnesia and unfounded optimism. Somehow it is believed that the current stagnation will be stopped by the competent bodies of the G8, and everything will return to “normal”, by which I would like to understand a satisfying pause between the two previous crises.

In the meantime, a new migration of peoples is on the threshold. Suicide bombings are already habitually merging into the dosimetric crackle of the reactor. On the global periphery, unknown forces, nameless yesterday, are expropriating the owners of deposits and valuable cargo. Pirates of Somali Puntland covet tankers, Tuareg separatists cut off the path to Malian uranium and gold. And whose hemp is now overgrown with Kosovo field? Whose bonfires are burning in the suburbs of Stockholm and Paris? Is Yaroslavna crying in Putivl, or is the muezzin?

A stranger came, a nomad, a migrant - and his own, dear, lo and behold - already over the hill.

Innovative pause in Kondratieff cycles

Even a schoolboy today has heard a lot: economic growth resumes when people invent and massively apply new technology, which means they begin to produce more energy, matter, food and heat per unit time ...
The technocratic idea of ​​a "basis" that pushes forward the productive forces is attributed to Marx. According to "historical materialism", production develops in cycles associated with the emergence of new technologies and tools. And those who try to hinder are burned in the cleansing flame of revolutions.

Later researchers linked this idea to the empirically observed "Kondratiev cycles" in the growth of social productivity. The best minds set off in search of explanations for cyclicity. According to one of the advanced hypotheses, economic development is based on energy production technologies, the change of which, in turn, is associated with the transition to new type energy carriers. Hence - the idea of ​​the cycles of wood, coal, oil, gas energy, generating their own worlds with new production methods, global leaders and living standards.

Simpler thinkers tend to add what they like to a bunch of backbone technologies: the steel industry and railways, electric motors and big chemistry…

There is a complete expert consensus on the last wave. It is believed that since the middle of the XX century. the role of a global driver of growth is played by computer and network technologies. But the impetus that they gave to the development of the world economy, apparently, has been exhausted. And the world, impatiently fidgeting, is waiting for when and which of the new technologies will take over.

Among the candidates widely discussed in the circles of authoritative bloggers and government experts are space and nuclear energy, bio- and nanotechnologies. With regards to the first two, there is a complete misunderstanding here: the technological base of both industries is firmly bogged down in the past. The royal "seven" that raised the first satellite, and to this day remains an orbital workhorse, not knowing competition in terms of cheapness and reliability. In the nuclear industry since the days of Kurchatov, conservative reliability has stifled innovation. As for nano- and bio-miracles, they may eventually become growth factors, but for now, on the contrary, like small children, they require long-term efforts and trillions of investments in R&D.

The academician in "Problems of Economics" gave the technological delay the nature of a scientific hypothesis, according to which the world has come "innovative pause". Its mechanisms are fundamentally uninteresting to the scientist. Another thing is more important: “innopause” leaves no hope for a pregnancy fraught with a new technological miracle that could save, if not the world, then at worst the Dow Jones index.

In short, in a language intelligible to Russian business executives, the hypothesis says: this season, the "northern delivery" will no longer take place.
But if so - teeth on the shelf! The global world order is doomed to a hard reset. Not everyone is destined to experience it.

End of modern times

Where did the new magic wand fall into, and is it possible to help the trouble?
Innovative pause – between what and what?
Let's take a closer look at the list of techno-factors associated with the Kondratieff cycles.
Firewood. Coal. Oil. Gas. Steel. Electric locomotives. Internet.
Looks strange.
How did IT get into the strong manufacturing technology company? On processors do not plow. Global networks do not scoop fish shoals.

The fatal feature of the First World War included attempts to consciously turn the blueprints of inventors first into a destructive force, and then into a productive one. Tanks and machine guns, airplanes and zeppelins, gases and gas masks - the arms race in the interwar period is converted into "scientific and technological progress."

Unfortunately, from the same ancient years, the philistine tradition has been stretching to this day to understand the development of production technologies as scientific and technical progress, losing sight of the fundamental contribution of managerial and financial technologies.
Victories in the Second World War were achieved, as a rule, not due to the perfection of weapons - their fighting qualities, thanks to intelligence, turned out to be comparable among the warring parties. The dominance of the allies in the air was ensured by the high efficiency and economy of mass production of IL-2 attack aircraft and "flying fortresses". This was a triumph for planners and financiers. However, unlike aircraft designers, most of the heroes remained nameless.

The leaders of the nuclear projects, Generals Groves and Vannikov, were certainly outstanding organizers. But the development of managerial technologies was not considered a "science". It still doesn't count. In the structure of the departments of the Russian Academy of Sciences, “management processes” are combined into one department with energy, mechanical engineering and mechanics, and “information technologies” with nanotechnologies. The description of the department of social sciences reads like a song, but “technologies” are mentioned there again in relation to computer systems. In other words, they are understood exclusively in a narrow logistical sense: “Maesh a thing!”

It is not so much difficult as sad to explain the point of the anecdote.

“It is curious that when it was necessary to register the All-Russian Union of Writers, there was no such branch of labor to which the work of a writer could be classified. The Writers' Union was registered under the category of typographical workers, which was absolutely ridiculous.
(Nikolai Berdyaev, "Self-Knowledge").
The productivity of socio-economic systems is not at all the same as “labor productivity”. Moreover, “labor”, in accordance with the foresight of a century and a half ago, gradually disappears with the advent of technology. In particular, it is already being forced out of the production sphere by “flexible systems” machines. The productivity of society is a nesting doll from a whole series of institutions, where the total economic capacity "from the inside" is limited and determined by efficiency, and that, in turn, contains Koshcheev's needle of value. Moreover, we are talking specifically about the effectiveness of regulatory institutions - not about the efficiency of machine tools or boiler houses, but about the quality of the system of managerial relations between production participants. Norbert Wiener will not help here, but Emile Durkheim cannot be dispensed with ...

In the late 60s, it was in this field Soviet Union lost the management technology race in which he had previously led for three decades.
IT by itself could not be the drivers of global economic growth. But they reflected it: they were a projection of the development of institutional technologies onto the plane of their “physical”, instrumental implementation. Real growth was provided by a wave of management discoveries and inventions, new corporate structures, methods of planning and coordination. For example, management tasks were set and solved life cycle complex technical objects; as a result, IT tools such as PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) were sharpened for them - but not vice versa.

The newest time ended in 2008, and never arrived.
This is the first time since pre-Petrine times that Russia is so radically out of context. What is now replacing our picture of the world is not even a mirage, but a misunderstanding.

Five years ago, in Expert, I already had to write that a new wave of growth in the post-crisis world economy will be provided by the development of new financial technologies. Now it turns out that exactly at this time the indicated wave in the West acquired its original form, name and subject. Today, its creators say that the period of conceptualization and organizational design is long over, the phase of constructing a new global market is in full swing.
What is it about?
Where are we?

II. Impact Investing: New Wave Constructors

world bermudier

In the serenely fat 2007, among the many concerns of prosperity, the Rockefeller Foundation did not forget to gather thinkers and practitioners at its villa in Bellagio, prophetically puzzled them with a paradoxical topic: how to create a global industry of commercial investment in solving social and environmental issues?

The intense work of thought proceeded in difficult conditions: on a cape jutting out into the legendary Lake Como, on the shores where Virgil and Pliny the Younger had villas in the old days, and now George Clooney himself settled. The magic of the place played its role: the prisoners of thought minted the concept of "Impact Investing" - a coin that turned out to be unchangeable.

A year later, a crisis of such proportions broke out that the leaders of the West were ready to grab at any straws, including intellectual ones. The authors of the concept were urgently called again under the banner of Bellagio. The Rockefeller Foundation, without delay, established the "Impact Investing Initiative", for which the Board of Trustees wrote off $ 38 million to begin with - and the work began to boil.
What are its fruits five years later?

The wave of new growth technologies is rising steeper. It is acquiring its own institutions and standards with might and main. The Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) has been operating since 2009. Its governing bodies include the largest financial structures such as J.P. Morgan, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Prudential, UBS, as well as leading charities, private firms and government agencies. The movement is actively supported by the American government Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), the Agency for International Development (USAID), the US Small Business Administration (SBA). However, the wave is globalizing before our eyes. Events, projects, government programs of Impact Investing are carried out in Mexico and Brazil, South Africa and Kenya, Britain and Holland, India, Singapore and Australia. Classifications, databases and standards for evaluating projects in line with Impact Investing have been developed and are being applied in practice. The world is seeing an explosion of interest in a new generation of fintech; conferences on the issues of Impact Investing gather dimensionless crowds of people.

Wave leaders claim that the stage of formation and conceptualization has long been completed. Today it is in the phase of active construction of the market, the formation of its infrastructure, which reduces transaction costs. As conceived by the designers, this market is intended to become the main channel for the investment mainstream in a few years.
In a word, the idea to cover the vast front of Impact Investing's work in a brief note would look strange. If not for one "but".
There remains the Bermuda zone with the size of 1/6 of the earth's land, where in all questionnaires in the languages ​​of the peoples of the USSR in the column Impact Investing it says "was not, did not participate, was not a member." A search on the RuNet on the topic brings up a single link to an article of a two-year-old bottling. Acquaintance with it shows: the author has obvious problems, and not only with English ...

And there, in the depths of Russia, -
There is eternal silence."

An innocent poem by Nekrasov in 1857 was not allowed to be published by vigilant censorship.

New Wealthy Prose Writers

Impact Investing is not a trademark of a particular investing technique that has recently been invented and has come into vogue. This is collectively the name-concept of a new wave of financial technologies, which has been forming for more than a decade, and carrying a lot of innovations on its crest. Functionally, it is similar to the term "prose", which is used to refer to a common type of discourse. But the prose writers of Impact Investing are more serious people than Mr. Jourdain, mostly from among the "high net worth individuals", a new generation of wealthy individuals. They are said to strive to "embody their values ​​in their investments."

Unlike laws that do not have retroactive effect, the concept of Impact Investing is aimed at actively and even aggressive development of the past, absorption-rethinking and repackaging of its financial inventions and practices. At the same time, there are no special problems with copyrights.

For example, Wayne Silby, founder of the $15 billion investment firm Calvert Fund in Maryland, remarks in passing that he has been practicing Impact Investing since the late 1980s. That does not prevent him from acting as a propagandist and enthusiast of a new wave of financial technologies.

Among the icons and participants in the movement is Pierre Omidyar, the founder of eBay, who ranks third in the list of young American rich people.

More complicated is the relationship of the new wave of investment constructors with maestro George Soros. The Economist, in an article subtitled "A Magical New Asset Class," explicitly lists Soros as one of Impact Investing's patrons.
The authors of the strategic report, published under the auspices of the Rockefeller Foundation and J.P. Morgan, are more accurate in wording.

“Innovation in the development of the financial sector will be of critical importance and transformative potential. Over the past decade, the UN and prominent financial experts such as George Soros have been intensively developing a number of new financial mechanisms aimed at addressing global problems like AIDS and global warming… Impact Investing is an industry and movement that is making its own concrete incremental contribution to this broader quest for financial innovation, both on the supply and demand side of investment and in the realm of intermediation. In that sense, the success of Impact Investing is truly meaningful to the world.”

However, movement pioneers Anthony Bugg-Levin and Jed Emerson, in their book Impact Investing: Changing the Way We Make Money by Changing the World for the Better, point to the significant fact that Soros actually invested $200 million in projects that are in line with Impact Investing. through the Soros Economic Development Fund.

Blending values ​​and paradigms

What does the new sign mean?
Seven years before Bagg-Lewin launched the Impact Investing brand, his co-creator Emerson staked out the term "Blended Value" - combined (rather even blended) value. The fact is that so far Western discourse has dealt with two polar goals of activity, implying two incompatible values ​​as their basis. Or we strive for high incomes - then we should put aside all thoughts about the welfare of our neighbor as not related to business. Or the task is set to solve the social or environmental problems of the broad masses - then professional charity appears on the scene with its tools that are incompatible with the pursuit of profit. Westerner Chatsky warned against trying to mix these two crafts. Now Emerson corrected him.

As it turns out, in modern practice, other things being equal, out of two businesses, the one whose owner consciously strives to achieve socially significant goals will ultimately be more successful. On the contrary, the long-term trend of modern charity is the transition to strict investment standards for the preparation and financing of projects, in particular, in line with the concept of "social entrepreneurship".

For people brought up in a culture of trinitarian thinking - in the Christian or Chinese version of it - Emerson's "combi-value" is akin to trying to break into a wide-open gate. But it radically changes the black and white picture of Western management.
Richard Koch, an Oxford and Wharton graduate and consultant for BKG, is credited with immortalizing the Boston Matrix:

"The Boston Consulting Group has introduced several types of matrices into scientific and practical circulation, it is rightfully proud of the ability of its employees to think in terms of two-dimensional abstractions."

The Boston Matrix (more precisely, its varieties) is a typical product and tool of binary thinking. For each object and phenomenon, it generates 2x2 classifications, where the mental boundary between "lame ducks" and "cash cows" is practically impassable. This also includes the Ansoff matrix, the classification of managers according to Adizes, the ternary typology of sales by Cox and Stevens, etc.

It's amazing, but true: the main classification tool of Impact Investing, the matrix "Capitalization - Coordination", is a 3x3 table. Where MBA graduates see four entities, the trained eye of an Impact investor sees nine.

For such a radical shift in the business paradigm - there is no time for jokes! - society is able to go only in the face of a mortal threat to the very foundations of its existence.
We are talking about the catastrophe of a long-term slowdown in growth.

Non-monetary minters

New investment planners are defying the challenge of growth, consciously guided by the Blended Value. The wave of financial technologies Impact Investing just claims to equip them with tools and standards.

The ideologues of Impact Investing point out that the movement was born as a result of the interaction of four key factors:

An in-depth risk analysis of investment decisions triggered by the 2008-09 financial crisis;
A growing awareness of the fundamental lack of resources in the face of severe poverty, inequality, environmental destruction and other complex, global problems, especially as Western countries are forced to cut their budgets for international aid and domestic solutions social problems;
An expanding range of practices that demonstrate the ability to finance scalable business models that produce socially meaningful results;
The transfer of wealth in industrialized countries to a new generation of wealthy individuals who seek to embody their own values ​​in the way they allocate their capital.

The working field of Impact Investing today is almost boundless. It resembles the lava field of an active volcano. There are thousands of projects on all continents, hundreds of research groups engaged in the development of financial technologies, tools and standards for dozens of specialized varieties of market participants. Research budgets alone run into many millions of dollars, while estimates of the size of the market as a whole fluctuate around a trillion over a five-year period.

Nevertheless, gradually shifting the focus of the review from the position of investors towards the consumers of investments, one can see three concentrations where the interests of the players are concentrated today. Each of them, for its description, generally speaking, requires a separate terminology. And here you can see the reasons for the current untranslatability of "Impact Investing" into any language - including English.

Impact Investing is the development of new financial technologies, tools and standards, the formation of a new layer of management and intermediary structures to provide investors of the "global North" with access to those areas of the economy of the "global South" that were previously inaccessible to them. (“Conditional Investment”).

A favorite example (rather for ideological reasons) is “microfinance”. In the countries of the global South, various local markets for financial services are being built up for a meager amount (like ten dollars) to millions of poor customers. An ordinary investor invests in the creation of a financial whale that strains the plankton of micro-borrowers with its whiskers. But for this to become possible, impact investments in information and service networks must first take place. Thus, a community of small farms in one of the countries of tropical Africa is connected to the services of a specially created network of the simplest mobile devices, which allow, for example, to quickly order a veterinary service and pay for it using a virtual microcredit. The role of the Impact investor, who invested in the network deployment project, was a direct investment fund, created at one time with the participation of the British government. By itself, a mobile telephony network here would not pay off soon: the locals have neither the skills nor the motives to use the phone. But the interdependence of the project floors works: it is the loading of the network with microfinance services that creates additional traffic that allows the Impact investor to live up to profit.

Impact Investing is the use of new investment tools to solve social and environmental problems in the investment area, overcome poverty, involve local investors and local communities in launching growth mechanisms. (“Development investment”).

Wayne Silby, who never misses a chance to promote himself, says:
“About eight years ago, we invested in a Chinese environmental fund in Beijing. Only six investors were interested in this small fund, and we were the only ones from the US. People then thought it was my eccentricity to hope that the Chinese would ever take care of their environment. The fund now has hundreds of millions under management, and is the hottest cleantech fund in China with commercial investors knocking on the door. I have no doubt that it was the Impact investment that brought us an oversized return.”

Impact Investing - working out guidelines, technologies, tools economic policy for governments interested in attracting a new class of investment. (“Localizing Investing”).

This is a dedicated, rapidly growing area of ​​Impact Investing. In it, for example, there is a special network structure Impact Investing Policy Collaborative (Cooperation in the field of Impact Investing policy). In the US and UK, government departments have policies in support of Impact Investing. But besides this, government activities are being implemented in Brazil, Kenya, Malaysia, South Africa…

In general, it should be noted that Impact Investing provides a powerful practical justification for the new apologetics of capitalism: it turns out that the pursuit of profit is quite compatible with the solution of the social problems of the third world, with the struggle for social justice ...

However, the cynical language of Impact Investing's ideologues on the issue of the new role of the state will strain Russian censorship, the right word, is worse than homosexual propaganda:

“In advanced economies, it is clear to Impact Investing leaders that government is capable, must and must play a key role in the growth of the industry. This is also recognized in the BRIC countries, where the state is an integral, main player in almost every area of ​​the economy.
Governments can play a powerful, direct role in the Impact Investing marketplace, using their financial power to secure decent investments with cheap, stable capital, and through guarantees moderating the risk of private and non-profit investors in syndicated transactions” 1 .

From such politically incorrectness, invisible hands fall on the night watchman ...

III. Impact Investing: From the Deep

I love this word very much
But I can't translate...

Let's ask ourselves the simplest question that inevitably comes to mind when we get acquainted with the Blended Value paradigm.

Whose values ​​are combined in it?

Let the investor be sincerely imbued with the idea of ​​making the people of the Sahel happy with clean water, which is of the highest value for them. But does he himself suffer from this water to drink? On the other hand, let the victims of arid climate wholeheartedly strive to improve the investment climate. But even if so, the desire of the investor to get the maximum profit does not become their own need.

The conclusion suggests itself.
Several agents take part in the “Impact Investing” act: investment providers, their recipients and (generally) intermediaries between them. Each of the participants, of course, has its own goals and values. So here it is at least one of the participants (namely, the investor), in an effort to achieve its goals, consciously takes into account the goals and values ​​of some other participants and contributes to their achievement.
In fact, such unnatural behavior of participants is called project investment(unlike business lending), and the whole act as a whole is an investment project.

The invisible hand against the invisible

How did normal Western businessmen, called upon with rapture to gnaw the throats of competitors, come to such a life?
Project investment is opposed to normal, that is, pardon the tautology, “investment”. The investor arrives in the Land of Fools and quickly scans the Miracle Field. There are numerous pits-projects where it is necessary to bury gold in order to then extract two or three from there. At the same time, the investor is completely reluctant to dig into what is happening in which of the pits. Instead, he seeks to entrust all the fields of miracles of each country of fools to the local stock exchange "Alice & Basilio", while he himself diversifies investments in order to avoid risks.

When an investor gets rich, he stops running himself, on the contrary, all the representatives of the above-mentioned countries interested in investments come running and pushing around him with papers. To systematize and organize this crowd, a stock market is established. It’s also a shame for an investor to go there now, a team of hired brokers works on it. But in order to avoid discord and arbitrariness in their activities, stock market theorists, on the basis of statistical patterns, derive theories of correct investment. As theories are refined and cast into mathematical formulas, the work of brokers begins to be delegated to trading robots.

The investor is fenced off from the specific content of the projects by the stock market;
then he placed brokers between himself and the stock market;
between brokers and projects inserted papers issued on their occasion;
then between the broker and the securities market he put formulas and statistical patterns of fluctuations in the value of securities;
then I put trading robots between formulas and papers...
and now the robots automatically, on his behalf, begin to rush at an insane speed and invest in papers, invest, invest ...

The apotheosis of the invisible hand is coming, to which the investor, 100% freed from the hassle of the content of projects, has given complete freedom to invest on his own behalf. He sold himself to the "invisible hand" with giblets, handed her all the responsibility and indulged in the bliss of pure values. He himself did not read, but he heard: either Adam (Smith), or the story about the Inquisitor says that the hand does better.

But at this moment, alas, a completely different invisible hand appears. The investor and the guests of his feast have the opportunity to observe only the brush that draws fiery letters on the flipchart.

This is the meaning of the great crisis, which did not begin in 2008 and did not end in 2009, but at that moment its contours clearly emerged. And the answer of the living forces of the Western world was the first step in the transition from the clients of the invisible hand to the agents of the invisible.
Impact Investing, project investment.

Comrade Buffett's course

Court historiographers at Impact Investing are casting candidates for the role of prophets, forerunners and founding fathers, reaching as far back as the Quaker era. But they missed the gigantic figure of the classic under their noses. Warren Buffett was the first among billionaires, both in practice and in theory, to reject standard investment in the name of project investment.
Buffett's paradigm is to invest not in papers, but in a specific company, finding out exactly how it works, what its team wants and what it can do, what are the prospects for its field of activity and demand for its products. Correctly evaluating the company's activities means, among other things, understanding its goals and values ​​in order to integrate them into an investment project.
For decades, Buffett's paradigm bravely resisted the seemingly invincible pressure of the old mainstream. Buffett is an absolute mauvais ton, a marginal, a nerd with fifty billion in the pocket of a jacket bought at a sale. His main business has been growing for almost half a century, even if you crack, by more than 20 percent a year. If he were not the financial champion of the world, he would, of course, be spat upon and ridiculed. Instead, he himself gives an Olympic smile:

You don't need to understand beta, efficient market, modern portfolio theory, option pricing, or emerging markets to be successful in investing. Most likely, ignorance of all these terms will only benefit you. Of course, this approach is not taught in most business schools. On the contrary, all of the above important place in the curriculum for the subject "Finance". It seems to us that future investors need to carefully study only two courses - "how to correctly evaluate the company's activities" and "how to relate to market prices."

Now the provisions and conclusions contained in the speeches and speeches of the respected leader, Comrade Buffett, have formed the basis of the advanced theory and practice of the broad masses of Impact investors.

predictable future

The efficiency of impact-investing in its current conditions is hopelessly behind the locomotive. So what? It's a live thing. Venture capital funding for innovation in Silicon Valley is still appallingly inefficient to this day. But in other places it does not work at all. You don't have to choose.

The creation of the new in the lands of the West moves in an evolutionary way, like a herd of bison, sweeping away, eating, trampling everything in its path. Get caught on the road though an abyss - it will be filled with carcasses of pioneers.

But for the inhabitants of the blessed lands of “catch-up” or “dependent” development, take it into their heads to borrow and transfer the miracles of Impact Investing to their glades, there is a number of banal, but practical advice.

The fact is that during the transfer what is transferred can change beyond recognition.

The word Investing in the title indicates that project activities are still being considered and described from the perspective of an investor. But the latter, with all due respect to him, is not the only participant in the project - that's why he is Blended. The experience of private equity funds suggests two more equally important positions in the project: management of value chains and management of the capitalization of specific assets. The description of the same subject - cost management, from these positions will be significantly different, like the female and male approach to marriage.

But that's not all. There are two vast professional areas of project activity where the expansion of the impact approach is just beginning. This is, firstly, the area of ​​infrastructure projects, where performance management, which requires organizational competencies, comes to the fore. Secondly, the highly professional world of production projects, in the center of which is power management, where the competence of engineering is in demand. Investments are needed both in the first and in the second cases, but as they deepen into these areas, investors feel more and more insecure.

If on one axis we put off the types of investment projects, and on the other - the set of roles of their main participants, then we get a matrix of required standards, which the entire budget of the Rockefeller Foundation will not be enough to cover in the current way. Current means empirical. Here you can not do without connecting the potential of systematized knowledge. Moreover, over the course of a century it has practically been developed in a broad vein of the institutional approach. The Great Commons offered the definitive typology of transactions that the academic community has been staring blankly at for eight decades. Hopefully, the practice of project investment will figure it out faster.

So, the scale of required design standards begins with the position of the investor and ends with the symmetrical role of the engineer. Engineering sets the bar for competence that financial technologists have to overcome. Engineering uses a special kind of knowledge about artificial, design objects. The laws of physics, chemistry, biology are not violated there - they work as part of engineering disciplines such as strength of materials. As a result, metal structures rise into the sky and fly higher than birds. In short: project investors need computer-aided design systems in which institutional knowledge is programmed. The standards of Impact Investing, more precisely - what is called so, are still far from what they will become.

The investment technology wave has a challenging future. It is still capable of splitting into several waves with a special name and destiny. It can be superimposed on another, no less large-scale, forming dizzying interference with it. Then, perhaps, the generation of new financial technologies will find its true name instead of the substitute name of Impact Investing.
In the meantime, one thing can be said for sure: the wave will not pass by. Its power is already uplifting us.
More precisely, we hang out in it like an invisible asset in the hole.

Let's face tragedy. Let's see her wrinkles

There are big words, front-tribune, empty - but creating the illusion of full ringing. Sort of like a national catastrophe.
And there are quiet, insignificant, as if erased - like Impact Investing.

What if the Soviet nuclear project, coming on the heels of Manhattan, ended in failure, nothing?
A disgrace, a national disaster. It's not even about the fact that they would certainly begin to bomb us - not a fact. But this would be an unthinkable humiliation of the country, the complete collapse of its leadership, the failure of the learned class. I would have to retreat from the Yalta borders. There would be no Gagarin, the space race, heroic physicists and lyricists, Cuba and Vietnam, the Aswan hydroelectric power station, BAM and the Kursk submarine ...

Now let's try to imagine a different story. In the sixth year of the Manhattan Project, when nuclear tests and the deployment of bases around the world are already in full swing, no one in our country suspects this, and is not particularly interested. The President of the United Academy, Trofim Denisovich Lysenko, closed the irrelevant atomic topic a long time ago. Lieutenant Flerov has nothing to write about to Stalin, he enthusiastically cuts a grant on the topic of irradiation of root crops. Beria's scouts, trained in tank secrets, work part-time with eccentrics in Los Alamos, tinkering with some kind of plutonium there in order to save up for girls and left-wing vacations in Miami. Analysts in the Council of Ministers write reports on the fight against locusts and global permafrost thawing.

The dim mirror of Impact Investing reflects an unusual, cruel picture of the world, where an empty space gapes along the contours of the country.
But it's not even about that. It's not about that at all.

And the sheep are safe, and the wolves are full. How a new generation of wealthy individuals embodies their values ​​in their own investments

In modern reality, all other things being equal, the business, enterprise or project whose leader considers the achievement of socially significant goals to be his priority will be more successful.

When a business achieves confidence in its own economic stability and bright horizons for tomorrow, the inexorable principle of Maslow's pyramid makes its owners distract from everyday tasks and think about the fate of the world. The improvement of the conditions of life on Earth has been talked about for decades, governments have adopted various plans of action and allocate significant funds to combat hunger, disease, poverty, lack of schools, hospitals, electricity, clean drinking water, etc. It is not easy to measure the effectiveness of such programs, but one thing is clear - these efforts need support from private capital.

Such a conclusion is by no means new and is intuitively close and understandable to each of us. Note, however, that discussions on this topic are steadily growing in scale. So, in June last year, a meeting was held in London, in the title of which there is a defining phrase “impact investing” - a trend and a “mantra” of the modern sphere of development financing. The level of the meeting is nothing less than the G8 Social Impact Investment Forum. During the meetings, the guests of the event talked about giving this area of ​​investment a generally accepted structure, standardizing its tools, and trying to provide all kinds of support. The forum decided to create a number of working groups, besides the main driving force for the implementation of their efforts in life - the Social Impact Investment Taskforce. We add that the European Commission, the OSCE and the World Economic Forum pay special attention to the topic of impact investing in their publications.

Profitable social investment

Obviously, social impact investing is more of a general concept than a specific investment strategy. The main criterion here is the desire to make an investment in a project that can bring tangible social returns, in addition to economic benefits. However, this type of investment is far from pure charity and should be classical principles management of investment projects, most often carried out in developing countries.

The subject of our consideration also differs from investment projects such as crowdfunding in that it works with larger investments made by buying debt or acquiring a share in the capital. In addition, impact investing focuses on a longer payback period, while the “exit strategy” from investments (be it an IPO or a sale of a business) is not the main criterion, which also distinguishes it from venture capital investment.

Individual investors, their communities, specialized impact investing funds, hedge funds and large corporations can participate in impact investments projects. A special role is given to non-profit "accelerators" - accelerators that support projects at the stage of inception and growth. They mainly attract donor grants to pay for the costs of developing the business of their sponsored projects.

Tempting prospect

In 2012, the Global Impact Investment Network conducted a survey of 99 investors who identified themselves as impact investors. According to the results, their total investments reached $8 billion in 2012 and were planned at $9 billion in 2013. More than half of the respondents emphasized that they are guided by the average market rates of return in their investments, that is, they are far from excessive altruism. There are, however, those who consciously invest with a return significantly below the market.

Of course, the sphere of socially oriented investment has existed for many years, therefore it has its own history and traditions. For example, development finance institutions operate internationally. In 2012, the British Department for International Development designated its assets at $75 million, and US Overseas Private Investment Company, a private investment company, manages six funds totaling $187 million to invest in foreign countries.

In addition, there are so-called private philanthropy (Shell Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, etc.) that make long-term high-risk investments.

Let's turn to the comparison. According to the Monitor Group, by 2020 global volumes of impact investing may reach a qualitatively different threshold - $500 billion. Investors provide funds in various forms - the purchase of a share in the capital, the provision of a loan, credit lines or loan guarantees. V Lately impact investments are contrasted with traditional "philanthropic projects" and interstate development finance programs, which look less predictable and more subject to change in the subjective considerations of their main donors.

Earn by helping

Bonds occupy a separate place among the available social investment instruments. Social impact bonds - bonds of social influence - are adopted by various countries, including the UK, USA, Australia, Canada and Israel. The principle of bonds is that the investor receives income if a certain social indicator improves as a result of the project and outstrips the results of government programs in the same area.

A wide variety of organizations can serve as examples of impact investing. Let's say Auticon, a company that helps people with autism find jobs as IT consultants in large enterprises. Or D.light, which has provided more than 17.5 million people in developing countries with solar-powered lamps since 2007. Credit Suisse has formed a fund with over $500 million in assets to invest in agricultural enterprises in Africa. Deutsche Bank created the "Eye Fund" project, allocating $15 million to support ophthalmic operations in 2010. UBS also provides its clients with the opportunity to invest in social projects, and JPMorgan created a social finance division in 2007 that is actively involved in impact investing.

The well-known Nike company, together with NASA, USAID and the US Department of State, created the LAUNCH strategic cooperation platform, which works to find and support ideas and technologies that can change the world for the better.

Impact investing is a new concept and paradigm of the world economy, which is already effectively operating today, supported by most of the developed countries of the world. In pursuit of profit, it was decided not to pay much attention to value categories. However, life put everything in its place. When endless growth is not possible, and crisis follows crisis, it's time to reconsider the foundations that have existed for more than 300 years in the direction of helping humanity and the value ideals of social justice. No matter how pathetic it may sound, the concept works and bears fruit.

Explanation

The phrase "impact investing" is not translated into any language, including English, because it reflects three important elements:

• impact investing (conditional investment) - the formation of new models, technologies and standards to ensure the entry of "investors from developed countries" into "new areas (previously inaccessible) of third world countries";
• impact investing (developing investment) - involvement of all stakeholders in the process of creating infrastructure and working mechanisms in new zones and investment objects in order to resolve social and economic problems;
• impact investing (localizing investment) - popularization, implementation, mediation, consulting, study of tools and models for the further development of a new class of investments. Governments, international organizations, etc. are involved.

The most important thing that the concept of impact investing conveys is that the pursuit of profit is compatible with the benefit to society, the solution of environmental problems and social justice.

Examples of successful impact investing

Trade Finance Loans

A UK-based investment fund that finances small growth trading businesses in Latin America and Asia. The amount of investments has already reached almost $200 million, covering about 300 enterprises. According to the fund's calculations, more than 98% of loans were returned on time. For example, part of the funds was invested in Fair Trade, an Ecuadorian cooperative specializing in the production of organic coffee. The cooperative had 300 active member farmers who needed to finance operating expenses and purchase new equipment. These needs were covered by a trade finance loan.

Additional Fair Trade proceeds were reinvested in landscaping, education, and the establishment of community health clinics in the community.

budget housing

A Brazilian private equity fund manages $75 million in assets. Its investment policy focuses on both the average market rate of return and investments in agrarian communities. South America allowing for a tangible social return. The Foundation has invested $4 million to build affordable housing for low-income families in rural areas. As part of this investment project, more than 10 thousand houses were built in South American countries, mainly in areas affected by natural disasters.

Access to clean energy

A €150 million investment fund based in Europe makes investments of €2-10 million in companies supplying “ clean energy» to agricultural areas in developing countries where access to energy infrastructure is limited. For example, the fund invested €2 million in a company that supplies solar energy for lighting and cooling to Indian rural homes, schools and hospitals that do not have access to the electricity grid. The investment is made by acquiring a share in the capital of an Indian company. The recipient company itself, thanks to this investment, installed about 40 thousand systems.

Drinking water

The India-based impact investing fund has been involved in microfinance for more than a decade. He managed to achieve a yield level of 14% per annum, after which the second direction was opened. In this area, the fund provides risk capital and support to start-up businesses in agriculture, medicine, education and renewable energy. The average investment is $50,000.

An example of such a project is a company that installs water purification systems in villages. The treatment plants are owned by local communities, and the management company sells purified water to the villages at an affordable price. In addition, she trains local entrepreneurs and helps them develop their own business to supply water to neighboring villages.

A Word to the Giants - JPMorgan

JPMorgan has repeatedly stressed the importance of impact investing to its corporate mission. In this area, she has chosen a course for obtaining investment returns in the social and environmental spheres.

Thus, by entering into an agreement with the African Agricultural Capital Fund, JPMorgan made an investment in Wilmar Flowers, a Kenyan flower exporter that purchases flowers from more than 3,000 suppliers - private Kenyan farmers. Backed by JPMorgan investment, Wilmar plans to expand its supplier base to 5,000 farmers by 2016. In general, the JPMorgan cooperation program with the African Agricultural Capital Fund in the long term provides support for 250 thousand farmers from various agricultural sectors in East Africa.

JPMorgan's collaboration with IGNIA in Mexico helped support Barared's venture. The core of his business is providing low cost telecommunications and e-banking services in Mexico. Poor residents of the country can, for a small fee, use telephone booths installed in nearby shops and pharmacies. By the way, such booths often turn out to be the main source of income for the owners of "micro-businesses" - stores.

A Word to the Giants - Goldman Sachs

According to Alicia Glen, Goldman Sachs' head of urban infrastructure investment, her company's idea of ​​social impact investing is to leverage private capital to fund public social services. Recently, Goldman Sachs invested about $10 million in social impact bonds we already know as part of one of New York's funding programs. Together with City Hall and Bloomberg Philanthropies, the program aims to reduce teenage recidivism in a number of correctional facilities.

In addition, Goldman Sachs is working with similar bonds in early childhood education programs.

For those who are interested in actively aligning their business or financial resources with values, now is an exciting time. Not only is the number of opportunities returning more than ever, but also the constant improvement of the structure of the deal, allowing you to get better and faster access to your investments. This is especially important for eternal tourists and curious readers of our site.

The opportunities that help people in countries with less developed markets or frontier financial markets to lift themselves out of poverty and lead healthier and more inclusive lives are truly enormous. Moreover, the infrastructure of the stock market is being transformed to stimulate and finance these kinds of ventures.

Many definitions have been used to describe impact investing, such as: social entrepreneurship, triple criterion, environment, social issues, intra-corporate relations, ongoing corporate social responsibility, socially responsible investment or green investment.

In order for us to understand each other, I want to define very precisely what impact investing is. My definition comes from Jed Emerson's idea of ​​"combined value". This refers to the use of capital in order to maximize the total value of the totality of three factors: financial, social and environmental. To put it simply, I'm talking about investing for profit, but with social responsibility.

The modern financial world includes three sectors: private commercial organizations, public (state) and non-governmental public organizations(NGO). For the most part, the areas of each sector are clearly separated. Financial flows and opportunities do not cross the boundaries of spheres, with the exception of charitable donations. Now this situation is beginning to change.

Today, the blurring of boundaries between sectors is due to the emerging international movement known as impact investing = social investing! Beliefs and investing go hand in hand.

Behind this is not new idea. In the Western world, it has an echo in the 17th century Quaker movement, who matched their investments with their principles. As recently as the early 1970s, we saw the rise of socially responsible investing (SRI) as investors used all sorts of social valuation to help them invest in accordance with their values.

The rapid growth of SDI and its use for negative social evaluation in the liquidation of public companies whose values ​​or products do not meet the needs of the investor came as a surprise to many. A similar challenge to society was Milton Friedman's prediction that "the social responsibility of companies should increase profits." The fact that by 2007, in professional management, every dollar in nine was invested using social valuations proves that people are willing to invest in accordance with their values.

During the same period, from the 1980s to 2005, the number of non-profit organizations and NGOs increased. This growth was a direct reflection of the frustration and disappointment of most people in traditional way business. Long before the global financial crisis of 2008, it was obvious even to the outside observer that many of society's persistent problems had not been adequately addressed.

The financial collapse prompted society to change. Social investing, still in its infancy, has benefited from the effects of the 2008 crisis as people from different parts of the world have re-analyzed the financial system, their role in that system, and their investments.

In relation to SDI, impact investing primarily addresses private companies that prudently cultivate positive financial, environmental, and social benefits. Impact investing bridges the gap between philanthropy and the traditional "business as usual" model in the commercial sector. If you think about the hierarchy of the free resources of capital, you will very quickly realize that charitable money is the most valuable, because people can afford to give away a lot of money, regardless of the end result.

This situation has been a limiting factor for the expansion of most non-profit organizations and NGOs. The problems they are trying to solve are huge, but their resources are limited. However, if these same people invested in these organizations on a commercial basis and made a decent return on their investment, then the amount of dollars invested would increase significantly. That's where social investing comes in - it's the intersection of value and profit.

Capital markets are arguably the most powerful force for change on the planet (both positive and negative), and if you want to produce large-scale, ever-changing economic development, then you must be able to invest on a commercial basis in businesses who are working to bring about such changes. In fact, other people around the world feel the same way. Since 2008, optimization processes have been going on in the financial sector as a whole, while social investment is growing rapidly.

For such businesses and investors who are interested in investing in accordance with their values, now is the best time. A 2010 report by The Rockefeller Foundation and The Monitor Consulting Group notes that " In less than 10 years, impact investing in just five sectors: housing, rural water, maternal health, primary education, and financial services has the potential to grow capital invested from $400 billion to $1 trillion. and profit growth from $163 billion to $667 billion».

In the US, the infrastructure for the impact investment sector has already been created. New forms of legal entities, such as not-for-profit organizations or low-income limited liability companies, aim to protect financial interests investor and the implementation of the social goals of the enterprise.

Apparatus for measuring social value and social impact invented; new tax policies that take into account the social benefits derived from socially responsible corporations, and "social" capital markets have been created to better finance socially oriented entrepreneurial activities.

Special funding sources are being developed. A socially responsible stock exchange is already under development in at least six countries, and Asia's first impact exchange recently opened in Singapore. In addition, highly specialized social responsibility firms offer a wide range of equity and venture capital funds in different sectors and with a variety of return strategies.

They include bond and loan guarantees, as well as combined commercial and non-commercial funds. Impact investing is well on its way to creating its own asset class.

Perhaps the best-known impact investing today is microfinance. Despite the fact that a lot of controversy over the procedure for issuing loans and overestimated interest rates have been revealed, over the past twenty years, microloans have improved the lives of millions of the poorest people on the planet.

While there are many inspiring stories around the world, including the most developed countries that are part of the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development), the opportunities for perpetual tourists in emerging markets that fall under Unbound’s consideration seem the easiest to benefit immediately .

Since almost everything is needed for such markets, it is very cheap to start a business here. It is clear that the risks are different. The investor or owner of the enterprise has to take into account: different values ​​in work, level of education, laws, level of technical development and differences in the provision of assistance to business by governments of different countries. Although impact investing is a difficult task, today we can already talk about notable successes in this area.

Some examples

An agricultural fund that provides low-interest capital to African farmers receives a return on their investment in the form of farm products at a reduced price. Who knows how to sell a product in the shortest possible time is African farmers. Due to the severe shortage of warehouses for storing products, they are forced to sell the crop in full on the day of harvest.

Today the government is trying to attract investment for construction storage facilities and agricultural supermarkets. This will give farmers the opportunity to plan their business. Plus, the ability to store crops in a warehouse will provide flexibility in selling products and allow you to negotiate the best price. In addition to budgetary capital, farmers receive technical and agricultural assistance in order to improve their crops.

The course on impact investing is one of the most popular courses in colleges in the US and Europe today. This popularity is by no means limited to the student environment. Banker Morgan ("JPMorgan Chase & Co") decided to launch a social and financial unit at the bank, and after just a week, received more than 1000 calls and emails from other banks that wanted to join! And this despite the fact that impact investing is considered not the easiest thing to do.

I agree, I am also inspired by impact investing. After all, this program is more about the human spirit and experience than more traditional business models.

As a result, you will get two products at once: financial benefit and great satisfaction from the feeling that you are doing something really important.

Today, impact investing is beginning to have an impact on traditional investing. A large number of large investment banks invest in socially oriented funds. For example, this is the Carlyle Group, one of the largest investment funds managing assets worth more than $147 billion.

Can impact investing be called not only a source of investment with huge profits, but also driving force to a better future?

As famous Canadian hockey player Wayne Gretzky once said: I rush to where the puck will be, not where it was"! In the same way, we can build our lives. We ourselves are free to choose: to work in the world as it is, or to change it the way we want it.

Frequently asked Questions

Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency of the peer-to-peer payment system of the same name, where users carry out transactions on their own, without centralized control and intermediaries.

The Bitcoin network is based on a public, collective ledger called the "blockchain". All transactions ever made are recorded in the blockchain, thanks to which the user's computer can confirm the authenticity of any transaction. The authenticity of each transaction is confirmed by the corresponding digital signature, correlated with the sender address, which allows all users to fully control the sending of bitcoins from their own bitcoin addresses. In addition, everyone can process transactions using specialized computer hardware resources, receiving bitcoins as a reward for this. This process is called "mining".

Blockchain is a digital ledger with public access, where in chronological order all transactions in bitcoins or other cryptocurrencies are recorded.

Mining is the process of using the computing power of a computer to provide protection against the repeated spending of the same bitcoins in different transactions and to generate new bitcoins in the system. From a technical point of view, mining is the calculation of a hash from the block header, including, among other things, a link to the previous block, a hash of many transactions, and a nonce (a random number used once for authentication purposes).

Most often, bitcoin cryptocurrency is bought on bitcoin exchanges such as GDAX or BitStamp, it can also be bought directly from bitcoin holders - through marketplaces and online auctions. Payment options are very different - cash, credit and debit cards, wire transfer or even other cryptocurrencies.

Such a "wallet" in the Bitcoin system is essentially equivalent to a bank account. With it, you can receive bitcoins, store them, send them to others. There are two main types of such wallets - software and web. A software wallet is a wallet that you install on your computer or mobile device. You are in complete control of ensuring its security, but sometimes there may be problems associated with the process of installing it and maintaining its functioning. A web wallet is a wallet hosted by a third party, on a hosting. It is often much easier to use, but you must be sure that the hosting provider (hoster) can provide adequate protection for your funds.

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Subtitles

[AUDIENCE] Hello Andreas. Thank you very much for the conversation. It was nice. I am from Venezuela. Today we are going through a special moment, trying to get away from the dictatorship. I wonder what you think of the state-backed cryptocurrency? Real, not like Petro. Or is it better in our country and economy to accept the duality of fiat currency and all cryptocurrencies? [ANDREAS] That's a great question. State cryptocurrencies will not change anything. By definition, they will be centralized, controlled, observable and closed. They will require identification and will only be available to a select few. We will see more and more government digital currencies as we enter the last era of cash. Cash will be liquidated in our lifetime. Anyway, our children will never see the money unless they visit the museum. They will be destroyed, because unfortunately (from the point of view of the state) they create an openness ... for freedom where freedom is not allowed. Cash gives some flexibility in a system where even funny things are made illegal. Generally speaking, people who commit serious crimes do not use cash. They are difficult to move. For serious crimes, you need to buy yourself a banking license and use the bank to commit them. [Applause] But if you want to sell bananas on the street without any kind of license, or sell South Korean movie CDs in North Korea, or invest in an opposition political party, and these are all illegal activities, then cash is what you you will use. Cash disappears. They are trying to destroy cash through government digital currencies. They're trying to create a freak show, a virtual digital money prison where everything you do is controlled... and tracked. At this point, your freedom is a double switch that they can flip: free or not free. One day, someone will walk through this control room and turn on all the switches. Click, click, click! "I won the election!" [Laughter] Of course you won. [AUDIENCE] Hello, thank you. It's hard to stop at one question. We have a long history of cooperativism in Argentina... which has been destroyed by financial regulations that protect monopolies. My friend used to drive one of them. Cooperatives for work or lending were networks of trust. These were small regional networks with shared values. I like to call them valuable Local Area Networks (LANs). But they could not scale or connect into strong national networks. I want to ask you: do you see a place for cooperativity and networks of trust in the crypto space, next to networks without trust? Oh absolutely. A network without trust exists for extreme cases. You need something to manage situations where there is no trust. But even though the vast majority of transactions between people are based on trust, you need trustless networks to make those transactions when you have no idea who that person is. This was not the case for most of the existence of trade. We have been drawn into this space as society has grown. For example, the more you use credit cards and digital money, the less you interact with local merchants. If you are a fisherman and have just caught a fish in the sea... and want to sell it to someone, you have two options in today's world. You either accept Visa or you will need to change, right? Cash won't work in many places. Increasingly, cash is failing. People don't have cash or don't want to use it. It's difficult. I have been to Argentina four times. I know that when the long weekend comes around, you start lining up in front of the bank on Tuesday because the cash registers fill up on Monday. If you're lucky, you might get 500 peso notes. Otherwise, you will receive 100 peso notes. Cash here is tricky. This is very difficult to explain to Americans who have never experienced it. I experienced it in Greece. I remember the days when there were no ATMs and people lined up in banks. We ran around the banks trying to withdraw money. One of the reasons you don't have co-ops anymore is because local payment mechanisms don't work. Cryptocurrency returns them. You don't necessarily need a trustless blockchain to accept a transaction... from someone you know, right? So how would these relationships be expressed? Maybe I'll accept the transaction with zero confirmation. From some people in this room that I know, I would accept a zero-confirmation transaction... of some meaningful value, because trust is more important here than a network without trust. Over long distances, with strangers, you can't do that. "Without trust" does not mean that we don't need trust, we don't use trust, or don't want trust. It simply means that we have the ability to work without trust. I really like the idea of ​​local cooperatives, especially in lending. I participate in some. For me, these are old school ideas, before I started talking about bitcoin. There are cooperatives in the United States where you can microcredit other people. Someone will post a profile on the site saying, "I'm a plumber and I need to equip my van with new ladders." "I need a loan for $250." Then they get $25 loans from ten different people that they pay back... within six months and you earn interest. It is currently a market that caters to all those who cannot get a bank loan. The good news is that we can make it wider and more global now. The bad news is that the bank loan mechanism is failing all over the world anyway. Something has to come and change that. Let's hope it's a more humane approach. [Applause]

Organization

The social investor coordination network was conceived by the Rockefeller Foundation, which brought together a small group of social investors in October 2007 to discuss the market. In addition to the Rockefeller Foundation, JPMorgan Chase and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) also initiated the merger. At the same time, the term “impact investing” was first defined, and the needs of the markets that social investments are aimed at solving were discussed. 2007 is considered the year of formation of the partnership organization, although no new legal entities were created at that time.

A year later, in June 2008, under the auspices of the Rockefeller Foundation, a large group of investors who were interested in the development of this direction of investors gathered. The meeting discussed, in particular, the need to create standards in the industry, the methodology for assessing the effectiveness of social entrepreneurship, the possibility of solving more social problems by combining efforts, etc.

The formal founders of the organization were the leading market players. Among them, for example, Oxfam and Shell Foundation, from capital owners (English asset owners); Royal Bank of Canada, from the manager (English asset managers), Endeavor, Ministry International Development Great Britain, Ministry Foreign Netherlands from service providers (English sevice providers) and others.

Luther Ragin Jr. became the organization's first executive director. For 2015 Chief Executive Officer is Amit Buri (eng. Amit bouri), formerly director of strategy.

Headquarters Global Impact Investing Network located in New York, USA.

The activities of the organization are funded primarily by the Rockefeller Foundation, but sometimes support comes from other members, such as the Omidyar Network and USAIN.

Activity

Main activities Global Impact Investing Network become :

• Impact Investment Advocacy.
• Association of investment market players impact.
• Create a knowledge base on the impact investment market ImpactBase.
• Development of a methodology for assessing the social effect of investment impact and standards for this area (eng. Impact Reporting and Investment Standards (IRIS)).
• Coordination of efforts through the Council of Investors and Working Groups aimed, for example, at the sustainable development of agriculture in Africa, or ensuring the access of small and medium-sized enterprises to financial infrastructure and resources.

Notes

1. Kevin Davis, Angelina Fisher, Benedict Kingsbury, Sally Engle Merry. Governance by Indicators: Global Power through Classification and Rankings . - OUP Oxford, 2012. - pp. 405-409. - 504 p. -