Read or attend any report or gathering in impact investing and you’ll be told that the impact investing market is growing fast. At last week’s Global Steering Group on Impact Investing Summit, for example, we heard a lot about the market reaching a “tipping point.”
How do we know whether or not this is a good thing?
We cannot answer that question by counting dollars, or by tracking how many philanthropists, foundations, and banks talk about the impact investing funds they are deploying and the impact they intend to have.
All that tells us is about changes in language and norms for product packaging.
The only “mores” that matter are more capital going to more initiatives and companies that make more of a positive difference in more peoples’ lives.
Until we are tracking that accurately, we have no way to know that we are making progress, or even if we are headed in the right direction.