Portfolio company Neighborly reviews common strategies for designing impact investments - particularly the need to understand the client's story and values. "It's not enough to simply check the boxes on the usual quantitative metrics."
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Impact Alignment: Client Stories to Manager Integrity
It’s not enough to simply check the boxes on the usual quantitative metrics when it comes to Impact investments. We need to ensure a united path between the client story, the investment objective and the managers and firms that implement the strategy. This entails a discussion with management and a deeper dive into why they are running the strategy. We frequently hear the response, “because the firm wanted to move in this direction.” A manager looking through this lens (more of an inconvenience than a mandate) will likely not produce the Impact results that come full-circle back to the client’s story. They don’t need to disown cars to run a fossil-fuel free strategy, but they do need to believe that they are making a difference, and embody that difference in their own values — or at minimum, the organization’s philosophies.
