Impact investors have united to voice concerns about the European Union’s Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), saying the regulation doesn’t recognise the difference between positive impact investment and investments in sustainable practices. The SFDR was created to enhance transparency around sustainability-related investment claims, prevent greenwashing and to channel capital flows toward sustainable economic activities. But it needs more clarity, according to our survey of 21 impact fund managers. Late in 2023, along with the Global Steering …

Chronic underfunding of nonprofits’ ‘true costs’– programme expenses, core administrative expenditures, organisational development investments, plus reserve funding – blunts the impact funders and nonprofits strive for. As a result, neither party lives up to its aspirations for beneficial change, while those served miss out on opportunities. The Pay-What-It-Takes (PWIT) India Initiative, launched in 2020, is a collaborative effort to seek sector-level solutions for this problem and has identified five principles that funders can adopt to …

  As the trust-based philanthropy wave is washing over the sector once again, concerns over its ability to prove impact, facilitate learning, and evaluate previous approaches are bubbling up. As a philanthropy professional with over two decades of experience in learning, measurement, and evaluation, I believe it is a false dichotomy to pit ceding control against measuring impact.  Trust-based philanthropy is having a moment – from the first ripples caused by news of MacKenzie Scott’s …

The enormous funding gap needed to address the UN Sustainable Development Goals stands at around $3.9 trillion each year. However, there is around $100 trillion of unused private and institutional money seeking returns every year. That’s a big pool of untapped capital out there waiting to be mobilized. Government officials, NGOs, philanthropic organizations and financial institutions broadly agreed that blended finance structures will play an increasingly prominent role in delivering outcomes aligned to the UN …