"We are pleased to share with the impact community our review of 150 impact investing platforms, networks and organizations that promote, support or convene investors in the impact finance area. Prompted by our own experience as investors, technologists, and system designers, we were interested in better understanding prevailing business models and motivations for sharing (or hoarding!) data, innovations, and investors. Our analysis builds on ongoing work to design and develop an interoperable, global, modular, distributed, and democratic infrastructure for mobilizing data, innovations, and capital at the volume and velocity required to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Our purpose, in addition to providing an overview of the platform landscape, is to identify opportunities for alignment of prospective partners, around the strategy, design and implementation for such global impact infrastructure; and explore scenarios for collective action."

"This study explores how the social entrepreneurship ecosystem can unite to develop an action plan on gender lens incubation and investing for enterprises focused on the low income market segment in India. It takes an international perspective with a geographical focus on India an emerging leader in innovation for the bottom of the pyramid (BOP) and is supported by examples of such innovative high impact, sustainable enterprises."

"This report from Oxfam and Sumerian Partners questions some of the assumptions around impact investment and highlights the experience of enterprises contributing to poverty reduction so that they might be better served by the field. It argues that the sector risks being discredited due to rising, unrealistic expectations about financial returns."

"The world is on the brink of a revolution in how we solve society's toughest problems. The force driving this revolution is "impact investing", which harnesses entrepreneurship, innovation and capital to power social progress. This report, Impact Investing: The Invisible Heart of Markets - Harnessing the power of entrepreneurship, innovation and capital for public good, examines what is needed to catalyse the growth of a global market for impact investment. It makes recommendations that can be implemented across Taskforce countries and beyond to deliver better social outcomes and improve millions of lives across the world. The report calls on governments and the financial sector to take action to unleash $1 trillion of private sector impact investment to tackle social problems."

"The study reviews the current state of impact investments in Singapore and Hong Kong, particularly those that have engaged with foundations. It further looks at the trends and challenges of the impact investment sector before presenting a list of recommendations."

"This research note asserts that impact investment, which is intended to create positive social or environmental impact beyond financial return, constitutes a new asset class. The report also includes the first large-scale data analysis of return expectations from more than 1,000 impact investments and compares them to established benchmarks for emerging and developed market debt and equity returns. We hope this report helps to advance a broader understanding of impact investing as an appropriate and economically effective way to complement government and philanthropy in solving the world's greatest problems at scale."

"Unitus Seed Fund has published a guide that has combined the methodology and approach the organization applied to designing to an impact measurement framework and consists of templates by sector for multiple types of businesses that can be downloaded for use."

"The following document presents five case studies to demonstrate how a diverse group of organizations have developed sound impact measurement practices, including how the seven guidelines are being applied in the organization, as well as the organization’s impact measurement practices, the contextual factors that shaped their impact measurement approach, how they involved key stakeholders along the way, and key “impact measurement lessons.” These case studies – which are highly diverse in nature – aim to help investors and investees translate the seven guidelines for impact measurement into an impact measurement approach that is right for them."

"This handbook provides investors, businesses and private sector development practitioners with an overview of tools and methods for effective and appropriately tailored data collection for impact measurement and management. It builds on the recognition that the methods of larger, independent impact evaluations of, for example, government-funded programmes rarely lend themselves well to a private sector context. In reviewing select private sector-relevant tools and methods, it draws out how such tools can deliver impact insights while often feeding valuable business intelligence back into companies."

"I present a model of financing social enterprises to delineate the role of impact investors relative to "pure" philanthropists. I characterize the optimal scale and structure of a social enterprise when financed by grants and when financed by investments. The analysis yields two heuristics to guide impact investors. First, investments allow a financier to discipline inefficient spending. Second, investments may enable a social enterprise to exploit new opportunities for profit and may increase the enterprise's scale relative to when grant financed. I quantify these heuristics for the case of Husk Power, a social enterprise that has received impact investment."