This post was originally published by Devin Thorpe on Forbes, here.
To paraphrase the great philosopher Forest Gump, impact investing is like a box of chocolates; you never know what impact you’re going to get.
One of the foremost experts on impact investing, Cathy Clark, Director of CASE i3 at Duke University, is working on that problem. She is focusing on labeling impact into categories that will be recognized by investors and issuers alike.
Sasha Dichter, Chief Innovation Officer at Acumen, sits on the advisory board for CASE i3. Of Clark, he says, “She understands where the field is and where it is going, and her thinking and writing consistently push the field forward.”
Clark says, “Impact Investing is hard to navigate. It covers a lot of activity in different areas done by different people. Yet the interest has never been higher. How can we simplify the field and make it easier for newcomers and experts to find the partners they need and help new investors find the products they want, more efficiently?”
“Getting the terms and categories right for people to customize their own portfolios is an essential building block that seems to be missing right now,” she says.
In light of the challenge, Clark has been working with Tideline to define the problem and start the work on a solution.
Dichter notes that Clark is an effective collaborator. “Cathy has a unique knack for partnership, bringing together practitioners and academics to created grounded, thoughtful pieces of work that address gaps in the underlying infrastructure of impact investing – whether market segmentation, impact measurement or new product development.’
Cathy Clark, courtesy of CASE i3
Of the collaboration with Tideline, Clark says, “Together we interviewed experts across the field to hone in on what makes the field confusing. From this, I’ve developed an analogy that explains the issue a bit more clearly, and we’re started to float a possible solution: the idea of creating ‘impact classes’ to go alongside ‘asset classes’ to help people label and track the kind of impact they expect to achieve with their investment dollars.”
It looks like she’s on to something. “Over 80% of respondents to a recent survey thought it was a good idea,” she reports.
Ben Thornley, Managing Partner of Tideline, says of his work with Clark, “Cathy’s work has been catalytic for the fields of social entrepreneurship and impact investing – and, importantly, translating between the two. Cathy has that unique blend of intense intellectual curiosity and passion for sharing and collaborating on ideas that make her the ideal guide. She dives deep — delivering case studies and other analyses of the highest order — but is also able to communicate complicated findings with tremendous clarity, at multiple levels – for students, CEOs, funders, investors, and policymakers, which is why she is so sought after.”
The collaboration with Tideline yielded a report, which you can download here.
This post was originally published by Devin Thorpe on Forbes, to read the full post, click here.
