Impact Investing Field-Building Research
At Pacific Community Ventures we undertake field-building research to provide investors, policymakers, and entrepreneurs with the information and tools they need to more effectively deploy capital and create economic opportunities in underserved communities. Through our research, we have fostered deep connections across the impact investing industry, with research partners including the Initiative for Responsible Investment at Harvard University, CASE at Duke University, the Aspen Institute, Impact Assets, Enterprise Community Partners, and the World Economic Forum.
What We Do
- Conduct research on key thematic areas, including the creation of quality jobs across the U.S.
- Explore pension funds’ use of economically targeted investments (ETIs) to achieve financial return and societal benefit
- Document best practices and key lessons for rigorous impact measurement and management
- Share industry best practices that underpin the success of high- performing impact funds
- Examine and offer recommendations regarding the role of public policy in supporting impact investing
Defining and Measuring The Creation of Quality Jobs
Since the end of the Great Recession, almost 12 million jobs have been created — but most have been in low-wage occupations and at places like strip malls and fast-food restaurants. Average wages for working Americans have dropped 23 percent. It’s become clear that job creation does not equate to lasting economic change. In order to reverse the troubling trends we’re seeing, we no longer find it defensible to focus on job creation alone. We must shift our focus to the creation of higher quality jobs that are good for workers and their families, good for businesses, and good for communities.
The Impact Due Diligence Guide
The potential value of impact measurement and management diminishes when investors focus primarily on what happens after, not before, investments are made. Informed by best practices in impact due diligence and the experiences of leading investors, the Impact Due Diligence Guide offers practical guidance for investors on how to engage in impact due diligence. More focused attention on impact before investments are made can also help safeguard the individual investors, and the whole field, against potential ‘impact washing.’
All Recent Publications
At Pacific Community Ventures we develop social impact measurement and management frameworks and conduct field-building research to provide investors, policymakers, and entrepreneurs with the information and tools they need to more effectively deploy capital and create economic opportunities in underserved communities.
Pacific Community Ventures received a grant to identify the shared characteristics and practices of impact investors who had demonstrated outstanding financial and social performance, in order to better understand the determinants of impact funds’ performance and to create a practical resource for impact investing practitioners (fund managers, investors, entrepreneurs, policy makers, and advisors) creating or managing impact funds.
Impact Investing 2.0
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