Impact Investing Won’t Save Capitalism

I have spent the three years since my Harvard Club speech exploring the flaws of capitalism and trying to evaluate the various solutions being proposed.

This is what I said about Impact Investment:

Our family office and our foundation have dived in enthusiastically, making a number of impact investments in some excellent social enterprises. We are so excited to see the emergence of a new asset class that seeks to integrate “profit” with “purpose”. For the first time, a range of stakeholders, from government to private investors, are asking for social impact to be quantified and integrated with profit.

But while social enterprises and impact investing are a hugely important and positive development, I suspect they will not provide the solutions needed to address my irritations. Too often I am seeing impact investments and social enterprises that seem to draw on the worst aspects of the “for profit” and “not for profit” sectors.

In this article, published by the Harvard Business Review, Reuben Finighan and I examine Impact Investment and conclude that my suspicions were well founded: Impact Investing won’t save Capitalism.

I hope you enjoy it.