social investment

Social investing is a way to use your money to create positive change while still generating a financial return. Instead of choosing between doing good and doing well, social investors do both at the same time. Capital becomes “purpose-aligned,” which is largely the same as regular capital, but with much improved morale. And more pictures of seedlings. When you make a social investment, you receive a financial return and can claim social outcomes, usually presented in neatly formatted reports with reassuring arrows, cupped hands and stacks of coins growing out of soil.  Measurement becomes very important. Impact must be quantified, often through a proxy or benchmark. Additionality relies on comparing reality to the counterfactual, which is essentially unknowable but calculated with confidence. This allows investors to confirm that their money made a difference, especially in situations where something probably would have happened anyway, but slightly differently. Of course, systems...