"Impact investors pursue both financial and social goals and have become an important source of funding for social enterprises. Our study assesses impact investor criteria when screening social enterprises. Applying an experimental conjoint analysis to a sample of 179 impact investors, we find that the three most important criteria are the authenticity of the founding team, the importance of the societal problem targeted by the venture, and the venture's financial sustainability. We then compare the importance of these screening criteria across different types of impact investors (i.e., donors, equity investors, and debt investors). We find that donors pay more attention to the importance of the societal problem and less attention to financial sustainability than do equity and debt investors. Additionally, equity investors place a higher value on the large-scale implementation of the social project than do debt investors. We contribute to the nascent literature on impact investing by documenting how impact investors make investment decisions and by providing a nuanced view of different investor types active in this novel market. Practical implications exist for both impact investors and social enterprises."

"One of the ways to understand the success of impact investing firms is to examine how they add value to the social enterprises they invest. Did their investment boost social and/or environmental change? And what type of support, beyond financial capital, can they provide to enhance impact? Drawing on a design-based methodology, we seek to address some of these questions by developing a tool called the Impact Oriented Value Framework. Putting impact at the centre of the funds' purpose, the framework provides actionable solutions to infuse impact into investors’ non-financial support strategies and activities, enhancing their additionality to portfolio companies as well as their contribution to the impact ecosystem."

"Using a unique sample of retail impact investors, this study evaluates how investors deal with the challenge of aligning their financial and their nonfinancial goals. We find that investors with stronger nonfinancial motives are more likely to expect the overperformance of an impact investment and the underperformance of traditional equity and bond investments than investors with weaker nonfinancial motives. This cross-asset relationship between nonfinancial motives and expected performance indicates that investors form expectations that fit with the investment decisions that their nonfinancial motives are likely to motivate. We also find that after experiencing losses, investors with stronger nonfinancial motives are less likely to revise their expectation that the impact investment will underperform and more likely to expect that the impact investment will overperform than other investors. Our findings provide further evidence that preferences can affect expectations, and challenge conclusions drawn from observed behavior regarding investors’ willingness to pay for impact."

"We examine spillover and hedging among impact investing and agricultural commodities. Results demonstrate that impact investing is a prominent spillover transmitter during both calm conditions and crises, while agricultural commodities are typically receivers. Analysis indicates that hedging effectiveness is enhanced by portfolios containing impact investing and agricultural products, with this more so during crises. Additionally, analysis reveals that irrespective of position on the risk aversion spectrum, investors gain utility substantially by including impact investing and agricultural assets, even considering transaction costs. These findings add to the extant literature and offer practical implications for investors, fund managers, and policymakers regarding risk management perspectives and portfolio diversification."

"This report provides investors with insights on how impact performance analytics can unlock deeper understanding of investors’ actions and the real-world impact of their capital. This brief explores the positive effects of non-financial support on improving the impact of investee companies on the clients they serve in the sustainable agriculture sector. Findings highlight the role that non-financial support from investors can play in strengthening the impact performance of investments, improving sustainable agricultural practices and increasing the number of farmers served by their investments each year."