The Communications Gap
Cory Binns’ article in this fall’s Stanford’s Social Innovation Review underscores several key factors curbing the growth of Impact Investing. Prime among them is complicated language only a few understand.
The premise: “If a social purpose organization wants to attract investment, it can no longer rely on the moral legitimacy afforded by its charitable status….Instead, it needs to be able to demonstrate its investment readiness through the use of business-style language and performance reporting.”
The road map to a fully scaled Impact Investing eco-system requires that all the standards and practices for design, execution and reporting are rigorously held – just as they are for other asset classes. Obviously these fundamentals are critical and necessary.
Yet for growth to continue, the sector needs to be more open, democratic and accessible to a wider swath of investors and advisors. Consider this: Monitor 360 issued a report that demonstrated the narratives in the sector are focused on big investors (Super HNWI), followed by philanthropists, policymakers, entrepreneurs, with only 10% on HNWI. If roughly 8 in 10 HNWI’s are Millennials, that’s about 12.4 million people who are expressing interest in Impact Investing.
Are you missing an opportunity?
Reaching more interested investors and advisors warrants engaging in ways that are aligned with our cultural zeitgeist. Messages must be clear, distinctive and memorable; delivered through a strategic and consistent balance of digital and traditional channels.
The outcomes and increased potential of Impact Investing are too important. Let’s open more doors.
The Purposeworks is a social change consultancy focused on redefining the way we live and work. We collaborate with leaders and organizations to engage people + purpose as the engine for progressive growth. We’d like to help you create a straight line to investors with some straight talk.