Our History
The field of impact investment and impact businesses has developed as part of a new economic paradigm based on more sustainable, collaborative, democratic models, in service of providing more opportunities for all, of reducing inequality, of human wellbeing and of the planet and.
Financial resources from traditional sources, such as government, international organizations, and philanthropy, are insufficient to finance innovative business models that offer products and services serving low-income and vulnerable populations in particular. As a result, impact investing is emerging as an opportunity to expand the capital available to finance impact businesses in education, health, financial services, cities (housing and mobility), green technologies (water, recycling, waste, energy, agriculture), citizenship (accessibility, security, employment, gender), etc.
Internationally, the United Kingdom was a pioneer in the field, launching a Social Finance Task Force in the year 2000, with the aim of proposing and implementing recommendations to strengthen this ecosystem. With the participation of society and the government, the country has advanced in creating regulations, intermediary organizations and impact businesses and, primarily, in effectively mobilizing private resources to generate social impact combined with financial return. In the same direction, countries such Canada, Australia and the United States launched similar initiatives, followed by developing countries such as India and Brazil. The UK’s Task Force developed into an organization, the GSG – Global Steering Group for Impact Investment – that has been congregating country-members since 2015 as a catalytic movement to promote impact investing and businesses worldwide. The organization now has 32 country-members, and the Impact Alliance represents Brazil as a National Advisory Board (NAB) since 2015.
In May 2014, the Brazilian Social Finance Task Force was created based on an initiative promoted by ICE (Corporate Citizenship Institute), supported by FGV Business School with the purpose of building, fostering and monitoring a vision for the future and common recommendations to boost this field in a legitimate, decentralized and innovative way.
This initial mobilization brought together a working group comprising 20 organizations connected to the impact investment ecosystem, including representatives of capital providers, impact businesses and intermediary organizations. This group worked for a year to map and prioritize critical themes and opportunities for the growth of the field in Brazil, which generated a list of 15 recommendations for the period of 2015-2020. The Impact Alliance is currently working on a new set of recommendations for the next cycle (2020 – 2015) as well as a progress report with results from the previous one.
Since then the role of the Impact Alliance in the impact investment and impact businesses ecosystem in Brazil and beyond has grown, with new partners, members and connections.
For more information, access our latest reports or the Brazil page at the GSG website.
Contact: contato@aliancapeloimpacto.org.br