Impact Forum Aims to Make Impact Investing Mainstream
22 May 2014 at 10:12 am
An Impact Forum by Impact Investment Exchange (Asia) and impact investment social enterprise Shujog kicks off in June in Singapore, aiming to make impact investing commonplace in the region.
As the World Economic Forum noted recently in its report titled ‘Margins to Mainstream’, impact investing has generated a buzz around the world and yet left unanswered questions about what it is, how the ecosystem is structured and what the main constraints are that are preventing it from moving from the periphery of the capital markets’ space where it is now perched to the mainstream.
Getting institutional investors to allocate more capital to impact investing is difficult when there is so little visibility around the opportunities the sector promises, and stakeholders realise that much work still needs to be done.
Many socially focused enterprises such as Social Enterprises, NGOs and Not for Profits across the Asia-Pacific region are unaware of the growing alternative options to donor funding.
As social capital markets expand, such organisations will have greater control over how they chose to raise capital.
Impact investing remains for now in the realm of discerning accredited investors, but as it gradually opens up to retail investors, social organisations will have access to this huge pool of new investors.
Impact investing isn’t yet accessible to such investors, simply because of the lack of investment-ready Social Enterprises, the absence of comparable performance metrics and legal concerns around tax structures and exit strategies Social stock exchanges, such as Impact Exchange (a product of IIX), can make all the difference by providing not just the liquidity, transparency and efficiency that issuers and investors need but also setting the standards for measuring and showcasing the social and financial impact.
The “From Niche to Mass” discussions on June 12-13 in Singapore tackle a subject that stakeholders have identified as the biggest challenge to a market on the verge of explosion.
These growing pains are what the Impact Forum seeks to address in its sixth annual gathering of investors, intermediaries and entrepreneurs, where the debate will center on how impact investing integrates into corporate social responsibility (CSR), how layered deals can be a bridge between early-stage financing and capital markets, how an impact enterprise can scale up, and the role and growth of impact stock exchanges.
Inspire, inform and ignite at the Impact Forum this June.
Impact Forum is proud to be partnering with Pro Bono Australia and subscribers get $S100 discount with promotion code OP20PBA.
For more information, click here.
