New Year’s Resolution: Invest With An Eye On Impact

The past decade of growth in Impact Investing movement has been impressive. More investors, entrepreneurs, corporations, foundations and non-profits are investing with the intention of generating both financial and social returns than ever before, and we have seen interest in the subject soar. Yet it is still early days and impact investing has a long way to go. As such, we have many investors circling around impact investing, looking for ways to “stick their toe in the water” and experiment before they make a substantial commitment. If you are in this crowd and are thinking that your New Year’s resolution should be to step up your commitment to maximize profit and purpose and learn more about impact investing, we have created a number of resources to help you. None provide investment advice. Instead, they give you the tools to learn about impact investing, inform your research and be well informed as you contemplate investing with your values in mind.

The Short Guide to Impact Investing: This guide lays out the basic principles and examples of impact investing across the field. The guide’s content reflects crowd-sourced wisdom from dozens of our partners in the space. We kept it short and, we hope, fun to read. We developed a flexible framework and a simple taxonomy to help people get their arms around what impact investing means. Case studies and examples of organizations and investors will help illustrate how to create meaningful, measurable impact.

Impact Investing Network Map: Those inside impact investing and those new to the field often ask “who makes impact investments, and what do they look like?” That is why the Case Foundation built the Impact Investing Network Map. The Network Map demonstrates the publicly available transactions between investors and companies within impact investing. We believe that by bringing the connections between actors to life—looking specifically at the investments that connect them—we can foster a better understanding of the size, breadth, depth and, importantly, the enormous potential of this field. The Network Map is not intended as a diligence tool, but instead offers a way to view the ecosystem more broadly based on data sets made available in the sector.

Finally, it is important to acknowledge and celebrate the pivotal milestones that have led us to today, and to better understand the experiences and lessons learned from pioneers in the field. To celebrate 10 years of growth in the sector, and to highlight these key moments, we put together an interactive timeline. The timeline looks back at the last decade of growth in impact investing, and spotlights the many investors, entrepreneurs and leaders who jumped in and propelled it forward. The moments captured on this timeline are just some of the activities that have helped to shape the ecosystem we have today, but they bring to light the importance of distinct actions that have created opportunities for others and how the movement has progressed in key areas like intentionality, measurement and transparency. While celebrating the progress made over the past decade, the timeline also shows the promise the future holds for impact investing.

As I wrote earlier this year, we believe that forces are at play that demonstrate a promising future for impact investing. A wider and wider range of actors are jumping in, leading others who historically remain on the sidelines to start to explore impact investing allocations. We see Millennials and women playing a greater role in the next decade around how wealth might be deployed with purpose in mind, but we also see continuing momentum from all sectors of the market. Relatedly, we also see a growing number consumers are using their voices, their dollars and their careers to have impact, as well.

While these signs give us hope, there is much more to be done to keep the momentum going. And that is why we are reaching out to those of you looking to learn more about impact investing in 2018, offering the resources you need to learn more about this exciting field. To those new to the movement, we want to welcome you to impact investing! We look forward to you joining a community committed to putting investment dollars to work in the pursuit of profit and purpose.

The Best Newsletters for Philanthropy News

The world of philanthropy is always evolving, and our team is inspired each day by the tremendous giving that is taking place across the globe. From families and entrepreneurs lining up to give a majority of their wealth away through the Giving Pledge, to the boom of online giving platforms being modernized and democratized, to open source emerging as a new form of  philanthropy, there’s a lot to keep up with and celebrate. The many advances in the practice of giving back have opened the doors for new givers, both large and small, who are supporting nonprofits that are changing the world.

At the Case Foundation, we want to empower people to use their time, their talents and their treasures, and the first step to doing so is understanding the field. We are often asked how we stay up-to-date on the news across the sector, so we’ve compiled a list of newsletters we read each week that will bring you up to speed on all things philanthropy.

  1. Philanthropy News Digest from Foundation Center is a weekly news digest of the top philanthropy news. Sign up here.
  2. Inside Philanthropy has the top news in who’s funding what, and expert commentary on the philanthropy world. Sign up here.
  3. Future of Philanthropy from Fast Company has weekly updates on the individuals, groups, ventures and tactics leading the way in philanthropy. Sign up here.
  4. Philanthropy Today from the Chronicle of Philanthropy is a daily roundup of the news in the nonprofit world. Sign up here.
  5. The NPQ Newswire from Nonprofit Quarterly has a rundown of the latest events and trends on fundraising, philanthropy, nonprofit board governance and nonprofit management. Sign up here.
  6. SSIR Now is Stanford Social Innovation Review‘s weekly roundup of their top news stories covering the world of social change. Sign up here.
  7. Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy’s newsletter covers philanthropic, foundation and changemaking news with a focus on the next generation of innovators. Sign up here.
  8. Causeartist shares news in social impact with a focus on socially conscious consumerism. Sign up here.
  9. The Daily Good is a daily digest from Good Magazine that shares the top news geared towards next generation conscious consumers. Sign up here.

With these great newsletters, you can be better informed as a practitioner and as a philanthropist just by checking your email. And if you’re interested in the news on our other movements, check out my roundup of Inclusive Entrepreneurship and Impact Investing newsletters.

18 Leaders in the Open Source Community to Follow on Twitter

Open source is an essential tool for the tech community, providing open and accessible platforms for accomplishing everything from building websites to artificial intelligence. Yet the drivers behind open source are often individuals, and their commitments of time, energy and inspiration are truly an act of personal philanthropy; many players in the movement do it on their own time. 

 We talked about how open source can accelerate social good last month in SSIR, and increasingly, open source is critical for nonprofits and individuals who may not have the funds to build out software from scratch or license expensive and cumbersome enterprise software. 

 At the Case Foundation, we’re committed to contributing to the open source community and recognizing others who are doing so too. These 18 people have made a personal commitment to sharing their digital work with the online community. Learn more about them and how you can follow their work on Twitter below. 

  Name                   Twitter Handle                     Bio
Alolita Sharma
@alolita
Software Engineering, Open Source, Open Standards, Language Technologies i18n/NLP/ML/AI, Women In Tech At:@AWSCloud Boards:@Unicode,@SFLCin
Andrew Means
@meansandrew
Head of the #philanthropy beyond @Uptake; Founder – @theimpactlab & Data Analysts for Social Good @da4sg ; Invested in @City_Fields
Angela Byron
@webchick
Herder of cats. @Drupal core committer. Director of Community Development for @Acquia. @OReillyMedia author. Mom. Lesbionic Ace. Nerd. Gamer. INTJ.
Ben Balter
@benbalter
Attorney, open source developer, Product Manager working on Community and Safety at @GitHub. Previously @WhiteHouse Presidential @InnovFellows.
Christopher Fabian
@hichrisfabian
UNICEF ventures lead. co-founded our innovation unit. advise on open-source overlaps of tech, design, development, start-ups, and academia. our team is awesome
Daniel Berg
@dancberg
IBM Distinguished Engineer delivering cloud native solutions focusing on microservices, containers, and DevOps practices. Opinions are my own.
David Stoline
@davidstoline
Avid reader. Occasional cyclist. Well rounded geek. Former @POTUS44 tech lead. @drupalsecurity team member
Erica Kochi
@ericakochi
co-leads (and co-founded) UNICEF Innovation, TIME100 most influential, mobiles in emerging markets, epicurean, extreme sports enthusiast
Erie Meyer
@Erie
America’s foremost technologist named after a Great Lake. Now @CodeforAmerica! Co-founder @techladymafia + @usds. Former @harvard @whitehouse @cfpb.
James Kurczodyna
@jamesmk
Director of Technology at @wearefine and creator of Fae. #webdev #ruby #js #rctid
Jeff Walpole
@JeffWalpole
CEO @phase2. Board @DrupalAssoc. Leader in #opensource. Following #omnichannel #cms, #ux, #drupal, #collaboration #leadership #opengov #ai,
Jessica Bell
@SirJesstheBrave
Developer with @WapoEngineering. Chair of @DCACM. Leadership with @DCtechmeetup, @DCFemTech. JavaScript, SASS, cat gifs, and comics. My opinions are my own
Jessica Lord
@jllord
Node.js @MongoDB, previously @GitHub, @CodeforAmerica and @BostonPlans // I saw all the Vermeers!
Joshua S Campbell
@disruptivegeo
Geographer, PhD. Founder @sandhillgeo & @MapGive, Council @AmericanGeo. Fmr @StateHIU & @GFDRR. Geospatial, Open Source, Design, Product. Views mine.
Michael D. Johnson
@CodeNonprofit
Chief Operating Officer @freeCodeCamp
Rikki Endsley
@rikkiends
A little bit country, a little bit punk rock & roll. http://Opensource.com  community manager, tech journalist, runner
Sage Sharp
@_sagesharp_
Diversity & inclusion consultant at @ottertechllc. @outreachy organizer. Explorer of the kyriarchy. Hufflepuff.
Shannon Turner
@svthmc
Founder @hearmecode: free beginner-friendly coding classes for 3000 women in DC | Full-stack developer | Portfolio at http://shannonvturner.com  | Views mine