Get Started

Take a critical look at your existing capital: your retirement fund, mutual funds, stocks, bonds,  and any other investments you may own. Where is your money actually invested? The stocks and bonds you own may not be listed on your statements, so we suggest using the SEC’s Edgar database and asking your banker or fund manager to send you more information.

Start asking questions about the companies and funds you’re invested in. Do you agree with their missions and the impact their products or services create in the world? Do they have strong environmental records and labor practices? A variety of organizations offer services that rate both companies’ and funds’ environmental and social performance. If there is a mismatch between your goals and your investment ratings, it’s time to start thinking about what changes you want to make.

Decide what you want your investments to accomplish. Is it enough to ensure your investments cause no harm, or would you like them to support specific causes and places that you’re passionate about? Do you need to earn a market rate return on all of your investments, or are you willing to accept a lower financial return or take greater risks in order to achieve desired social and environmental outcomes? The more specific your goals are, the better able you’ll be to tailor a unique impact investment strategy in line with your vision for a better world.

Once you understand the risks inherent in different types of investing, you’ll be better able to determine what sorts of impact investing you’d like to do. For example, angel investing is very exciting, but it is inherently risky and requires a great deal of personal engagement to select and monitor the right investments. Do you want to be highly involved in investment research and decisions, or would you prefer that an advisor take the lead? It can be helpful to think of your money as buckets, each with a different purpose. Are you willing to take more risk with certain buckets in an effort to deepen impact? Why or why not?

This can be a formal policy or merely a set of guidelines and guard rails. Investment Policy Statements are standard practice in traditional investing and provide a formal framework for planning, managing and assessing a successful diversified portfolio. If you already have an investment policy, consider how to integrate your impact goals within that policy. If you are carving out a percentage of your investments for impact, you can create a policy for just those assets. Get specific: determine the percentage of your portfolio you’d like to dedicate, and how you want to allocate your assets. Set liquidity, risk and return parameters, and outline how you will monitor and measure success. Download our Impact Investing worksheet to help you develop those guidelines here. 

While some financial advisors understand and can easily support an impact investing strategy, others are still learning how. Talk to your advisor about why impact investing is important to you, and work with them to refine your impact investing policy, review your current portfolio and make changes. Some advisors may try and dissuade you from impact investing, citing their fiduciary duty to secure the highest return possible. Don’t be afraid to advocate for yourself and your goals. If your advisor is resistant, it may be time to consider working with a different advisor who supports your goals.

Impact investing can be a rewarding project for couples to undertake together, but it requires open, honest, and sometimes messy conversations about money. It can get complicated, especially when partners have different levels of understanding and experience managing investments, and when they have different goals.

If you’re interested in impact investing together with your partner, start the conversation. Do they know what impact investing is? Are they interested in investing in particular social and environmental outcomes? What investments do you own together? What financial and social goals do you share? What are their concerns? How much of your shared and individual portfolios would you like to allocate to impact investing? Can you agree to take small steps or allocate a portion of your investments?

Encountering some pushback? Be prepared with these Talking Points.

Impact investing doesn’t just have to be done with personal investments—it can be done using institutional investments too. Consider the institutional capital you control: are you on the board of an organization, like a university or a church, that has an institutional endowment? Are you part of a family foundation, or on a company board? If so, think about how you can introduce other stakeholders to impact investing, share its value, and convince them to use your institution’s capital to invest for better.

Finding a community of like-minded investors who share your values can be helpful as you weigh your investment decisions.

• Join an Invest for Better Circle or start a new one
  • Download our Invest for Better Circle Toolkit to learn how to get started.
  • We are building a national network of small, peer-to-peer learning and activation groups. Get in touch and we will connect you to a group in your region or provide you with a toolkit to start a group of your own. 

• Join a National Network  
  • There are a number of networks of impact investors of all types around the country.  Connect with other impact investors who are mobilizing their money for good.

Formalize your commitment to invest for better! Take action by taking our pledge, becoming a social media ambassador, and serving as an impact investing champion.