Research on impact investors

The report “Perspectives on Progress" reveals the experiences, expectations, and perceptions of 99 leading impact investors around the worldin 2012, as well as their plans for 2013. The GIIN collected and then anonymized all respondent data via an online platform before sending the full anonymized data set to J.P. Morgan for analysis The results indicate a growing market, with respondents planning to commit USD 9 billion to impact investing in 2013, up from a total commitment of USD 8 billion in 2012. Two-thirds of the respondents indicated they principally pursue market-rate financial returns. 84 Percent said that their investments were meeting their expectations when it comes to social and environmental benefits. 14 Percent said the investments’ social returns were outperforming their expectations, while only 2 percent said they were underperforming.

In the survey, respondents identified the top challenges to the growth of the impact investment industry today as being "lack of appropriate capital across the risk/return spectrum" and "shortage of high quality investment opportunities with track record”. Asked which government actions would be helpful to stimulate impact investing, respondents rate “technical assistance for investees” as most important, followed by “tax credits or subsidies” and “government-backed guarantees” .

This survey is the third in a series of reports started in 2010, that aim to capture and represent a sample of impact investors’ perceptions of the state of the market as well as the performance of their portfolios.

Read more

Report: Perspectives on Progress
Global Impact Investing Network