Excerpt of book by Priya Parrish: “My journey to impact investing began when I was an undergraduate studying economics and entrepreneurship and couldn’t find any examples of people harnessing the power of business to improve the world. That was 20 years ago, before impact investing was a recognized strategy. Back then, just about everyone in the field was an entrepreneur experimenting with investment tools, trying to figure out how to do well financially while also making positive change. I joined right in.
The term “impact investing” has been around since 2007 but hasn’t taken hold the way I thought (and hoped) it might. There are still a lot of myths about what impact investing truly is and does, the most prevalent of which is that doing good won’t generate returns. This couldn’t be more false, yet it persists. This book is my attempt to debunk this myth and others like it, as well as make sense of the confusion, as it’s difficult for a newcomer to understand the jargon, sort through the many false or exaggerated claims, and follow the heated debates about this topic. This book is for the “impact curious,” or anyone who wants more than just financial returns from their investments. It is for anyone interested in finding out what their investments can do when aligned with purpose. It is for anyone who wishes to live in alignment with their values—in every aspect of their lives.
This particular excerpt from my book, The Little Book of Impact Investing, provides a history of the term and activity in the space. It addresses why now is a particularly good time to make business do more and do better—so that the world can and will too…(More)”.