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Toniic Institute
Toniic Institute, the global action community for impact investors, today released T100: Insights from Impact Advisors and Consultants 2017, at the Berlin Green Investment Summit. This is the second report in the T100 Research Project, a longitudinal study of 100% impact investing portfolios of Toniic members.
In this new report, 37 impact advisors and consultants from 12 countries, partnering with 38 of Toniic’s 100% Impact Network members, open the door to their impact practices to demystify, inspire and activate both investors and the financial services industry. While today there are more impact firms and product offerings to choose from than ever before, information on impact intermediaries, especially for private asset owners, remains sparse despite the growth of the industry.
“As a trusted third party, Toniic can aggregate information through the T100 Project, and help investors and advisors learn from what’s happening on the frontier of impact investing,” said Toniic CEO Adam Bendell. “With this second report in the T100 project, we complement the initial findings of the ‘T100: Launch’ report with the perspective of active impact advisors and consultants in the field, helping private and institutional investors moving to 100% impact in their portfolios.”
“What we see is a dedicated, articulate, optimistic, innovative, and definitely persistent group of entrepreneurial founders as well as large company intrapreneurs,” said Lisa Kleissner, co-founder of Toniic and its 100% Impact Network. “Beyond fulfilling their clients’ impact needs, they are building new impact products and services, and volunteering their time to strengthen and grow the impact ecosystem. All of them, while cognizant of the challenges, are optimistic there are solutions and a bright future for impact.”
Impact advisors and consultants surveyed are reporting:
- A significant increase in the depth and diversity of the impact intermediary offering, with sector growth led by client demand. That demand is led by women and millennials asking for values-aligned investment opportunities.
- Challenges, like impact measurement and access to appropriate investment opportunities, remain, but none deemed insurmountable.
- Accomplishments and optimism as milestones are being achieved. Survey respondents shared success stories, from engaging with new impact clients and transitioning existing clients into impact, to creating new products, and becoming a viable 100% impact advisory business.
- Financial returns are on target. Clients target mostly market-rate financial returns. In some situations, clients want and intermediaries are finding high impact investments targeting sub-commercial returns.
- Looking to the future, all surveyed agree. Outlook = Growth. Respondents anticipate growth in the number of investors, advisors, and consultants in the space, growth in the breadth and depth of products and services available, and growth in talent entering the ecosystem.
As one advisor concluded, “At the end of the day, it is all about moving past the noise in the system to get to the more important task of co-creating the long-term plan for our planet.”
