Investment Impact Spectrum - Public

	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	J
1	Investment Impact Spectrum and Categories
2	You can use these definitions as a starting point to categorize the impact of your investment portfolio. Expand the rows for more info. Use Row 10 to add additional personalized details to any definition.
3						"Community Investments"
4	Area	Wall Street			Main Street // Impact Investing
5	Investment Impact Category	1. Traditional Wall Street	2. Market ESG & Treasuries	3. Positive ESG / SRI	4. Market Impact	5. Positive Impact	6. Catalytic

6	Simple Description	Investing in stocks and bonds of public ("Wall Street") companies.	Investing in stocks and bonds of public ("Wall Street") companies with some of the worst environmental and social "offenders" removed. Or, investing in U.S. Treasuries.	Investing in stocks and bonds of some of the "better" public ("Wall Street") companies and trying to influence them to pursue environmental or social goals.	Private market ("off Wall Street") investments that seek market rate financial returns with some environmental or social impact. (financial return > impact)	Private market ("off Wall Street") investments that seek environmental or social impact with some financial return. (impact + financial return)	Creative uses of capital at the intersection of philanthropy and investing that seek to maximize social or environmental impact. (impact > financial return)
7	Investment Universe	Stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and ETFs of publicly traded companies. Note that publicly traded companies comprise less than 1% of U.S. companies and tend to be very large multinational corporations. Most people also include U.S. Treasuries and other Govt Agency Securities in these categories.			Direct private investments or private investing funds that have impact-related goals. May include private debt, equity or real estate.
8	Investment Strategy	Maximize risk-adjusted financial returns in public markets with no consideration of social or environmental impact (positive or negative).	Maximize financial return in public markets by considering environmental or social RISKS to the financial outcomes of companies. Uses NEGATIVE SCREENS to screen out certain "bad" companies according to environmental or social criteria. This category also includes Treasuries because they can be considered slightly "less bad" than unscreened Traditional Wall Street.	Promote positive environmental or social GOALS by influencing publicly traded companies via shareholder engagement. Uses POSITIVE SCREENS to specifically include "good" companies that meet certain environmental or social criteria. Also attempts to maximize long term risk-adjusted financial return. Some people call this category "SRI" to distinguish it from Market ESG.	Seek a "market rate" risk-adjusted financial return on investment while also pursuing environmental or social impact goals. While impact is part of the strategy, it is a secondary priority to maximizing risk-adjusted financial return. Impact funds and impact investors who use traditional Angel, VC, or PE models would fall in this category. Some people refer to this category as "finance first" impact investing.	Pursue positive environmental or social impact while also achieving some financial return. Positive impact is of equal priority to financial return. A risk-adjusted financial return greater than 0% is expected, but some expected financial return is "traded" for increased social or environmental return. Some people refer to this category as "impact first" investing.	Seeks to use investing for social justice and systems change purposes. Most "solidarity economy" investing falls in this category. May also be referred to as "restorative" or "regenerative" investing. Positive impact is a much higher priority than financial return. Risk-adjusted financial returns are usually less than 0% but greater than -100%. Often best considered as a spending or giving decision, like a "recoverable grant."
9	Examples**	Index funds tracking the S&P 500, etc. Actively managed mutual funds with strictly financial goals such as "growth" or "income"	Mutual funds tracking standard indices that apply ESG screens, such a "fossil fuel free" S&P 500 index funds, etc.	Adasina Social Justice ETF, Nia Impact Mutual Fund, Impax Global Environmental Mutual Fund, Managed Portfolios with transparent positive ESG/SRI screens and engagement strategies	Most private "impact investing" funds (usually available only to accredited investors). Many investment crowdfunding opportunities. Various direct and indirect "impact real estate" investments. Market rate CDs from community banks	Kachuwa Impact Fund, Iroquois Valley Farmland REIT, Shared Capital Cooperative, New Way Homes, C-Note, Calvert Social Impact Notes, most CDFIs, some impact-first crowdfunding investments (like those on Crowdfund Main Street or Raise Green)	Black Farmer Fund, Seed Commons, Slow Money 0% Loans, Boston Ujima Project, East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative, various Program Related Investments (PRIs)
10	Add'l Personalized Definition Details	Example: "I/we include CDs from traditional banks in this category"	Example: "I/we include U.S. Treasuries and Federal Money Market Funds in this category."	Example: "I/we included Mortgage Backed Securities (non-predatory, such a GNMA funds) in this category"	Example: "I/we include rental real estate in this category because we manage our property in a way that has some positive impact. I/we may also hold CDs from our local community bank and would include these in this category"	Example: "in this category I/we want to focus on worker rights/ownership and local investments. I/we want to prioritize BIPOC-led funds or BIPOC-owned businesses where possible"	Example: "in this category I/we want to focus specifically on moving capital to Black and Indigenous communities in our state. I/we also want to prioritize participating in projects where we can play a meaningful role in helping "crowd in" other sources of funding to support the long-term sustainability of the projects we invest in."	<< Update this row with your personal definitions and preferred focus areas.
11	Management style options	May be passively managed (e.g. index funds) or actively managed (e.g. actively managed mutual funds or directly held securities).		Must be actively managed (e.g. actively managed mutual funds or directly held securities).	Must be actively managed and can be expensive if outsourced to an advisor. Therefore, these types of investments are often managed directly by the individual investor.		Usually actively managed by the investor. May sometimes be structured as a Program Related Investment (PRI) and made via a Donor Advised Fund (DAF).
12	Platforms and Custodians	Easily available for trade through all major brokerage platforms such as Vanguard, Fidelity, Charles Schwab, etc.		Mostly easy to trade on major platforms although some positive ESG and SRI mutual funds may not be available on all platforms.	Rarely available via brokerage platforms. These types of investments must typically be tracked and managed manually by the individual investor or their advisor (note that only certain specialized advisors are willing/able to handle investments in this "main street" investments category).
13	Key Focus of Due Diligence	Will this investment maximize return given the associated level of risk?	Will this investment maximize return given the associated level of risk (with the assumption that negative ESG screens can help mitigate financial risk)?	Does the investment strategy and governance structure of the fund/investment manager align with our investment goals?	Is this a case where positive impact is well-aligned with a market opportunity? Is the company/fund well-positioned to deliver reasonable returns to investors given the associated level of risk?	Does the project have a reasonable chance of delivering both it's financial and impact objectives? Do the impact objectives align with our goals?	Is this effort legit (not a scam) and is it well-aligned with our impact goals?
14
15	This spreadsheet was created by Rebecca Blumenshine and is licenced under CC BY-AS 4.0 (Creative Commons) which means it is free for anyone to use or modify.
16	CC BY-AS 4.0 license terms
17
18	These investment impact categories take inspiration from these sources:
19	https://ek4t.com/classification/
20	https://thriveimpactfund.ca/invest/
21
22	**VERY IMPORTANT: These examples are for educational purposes only and ARE NOT INVESTMENT RECOMMENDATIONS.
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100