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Fi Series highlights the role of individuals and families in building up the impact investing market

Valencia (Spain) June 8th, 2021 - Impact Investing has experienced strong growth in recent years, reaching a total of 715 billion dollars worldwide in 2019 in terms of assets under management. Additionally, according to the Global Impact Investing Network, impact investing has increased 17% annually since 2015, a trend that is expected to continue in the coming years according to experts and impact investors.

While interest in impact investing has grown among a wide variety of investors, one group of note is family offices. According to the 2019 report “Global Family Office Report” by Swiss investment bank UBS, a quarter of family offices are engaged in impact investing. Over a third expect to increase their impact allocation to as much as 24% over the next five years, while 30% will allocate 25% or more.

Despite their enthusiasm, many family offices face barriers in their efforts to embrace impact investing, like the lack of a sufficient number of well-known companies and investments with long track records, difficulties to measure the impact of their investments or the lack of education and understanding about the area.

These and other issues will be dealt with in the second live-streamed event series organised by Social Nest Foundation, Fi Series #2 “Beyond traditional philanthropy: individuals and family offices engaging in impact investing”, taking place on July 8th, from 3:00 pm to 4:00 pm (CEST). At the session, attendees will learn from the experience of individuals and families with a great history of impact investing, who will explain their motivations to engage in this sector, as well as the challenges and opportunities they encountered along the way. They will also share recommendations for individuals and families to get involved in impact investing in a meaningful and effective way.

The event, part of Social Nest’s Fi initiative which also includes an annual forum happening from September 28th to 30th, will feature experienced impact investors including Sam Bonsey, Executive Director of The ImPact, a global network of families committed to making more impact investments more effectively, and Maria Angeles Leon, Founder and President of Open Value Foundation, a Spanish non-profit with a hybrid model between traditional philanthropy and private capital investment, and Co-founder and President of Global Social Impact Investments, an investment management firm seeking to invest in business models with direct, positive, measurable impact that also generate an attractive return to investors. The session will be moderated by Monica Vasquez Del Solar, Head of Business Development and Partnerships at Social Nest Foundation.

“Impact investing is a natural fit for family offices, because they benefit from a unique flexibility in making significant investments without the financial return requirements placed on venture capital firms and other institutional investors” says Margarita Albors, President of Social Nest Foundation. “That’s not to say that they all accept below market return rates, but family offices tend to have lean structures for decision-making that can be brought into play to evaluate new, creative financing approaches. With this session, we hope to inspire and raise the interest in impact investing among more family offices, and by doing so, mobilise more capital towards impact”.

For Monica Vasquez “the alignment of the individuals' wealth with their philanthropic interests is a powerful strategy to address social and environmental challenges. As such, this group of investors is becoming great movers in the impact investing ecosystem around the world”. “Learning about their experiences in this arena can inspire others to begin this journey and drive more deployment of capital towards effective solutions, especially those that are at early-stage”, she concludes.

Free registration for Fi Series #2 is now open on the event website.

Fi Series has the collaboration as Ecosystem Partners of Open Value Foundation, Fundación Seres, Latimpacto and SpainSIF; Media Partners include Pioneers Post, FundSociety, ImpactAlpha and Colaborativo.