Congratulations to Stanford School of International Policy Studies (1st), Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management (2nd) and University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy (3rd)!
Too bad I couldn’t be in San Francisco for the final judging rounds but very interesting to see 2 policy schools and only 1 MBA program in the final selection bracket – now how many impact investors nowadays have public policy school graduates in their teams? Would be interesting to hear for sure.
UPDATE – Round 1 of I3C is finished now and finalists have been announced! Was a fun list I went through with neat ideas and glad to see 11 teams advancing to San Francisco for the April 13 live presentations.
Finalists below. Congratulations to folks from Columbia SIPA, Duke Fuqua, Kellogg, Stanford IPS, Berkeley Haas, UCLA Andersen, Chicago Harris School, USC Moore School, and USC Marshall School – excellent job!
If it’s true that the blogosphere is really skin-deep and that we tend to stay only on the first page of any blog, then perhaps there is some value in the ancient respected work of excavation and restoration.
To that end, I thought it might be useful to periodically dig up some previous posts and put them on a little list. Since most of the themes and questions on GG tend to be not time-dependent anyway, no dusting required! Also, some recently joined folks may find interest in them but would never in a million years bother to click through the history of this blog.
Topics in Archive #1:
Justice – Law vs. Justice in the Occupy Wall Street Movement
Poverty – Pity vs. Compassion when thinking about “The Poor”
Sustainability – The Right to Entrepreneurship vs. Sustainability
Careers – An Approach for Choosing a Do-Good Job
Reflections – Defining our Personal Boundaries for “Doing Good”
What is the viability of the Occupy Wall Street Movement? In today’s society, is it possible to ask for justice (right or wrong) in a system where legality (rules and laws) is the official decision-making factor of a country’s rulers?
How should we think about “The Poor”? What is the importance of periodically re-humanizing those we call “poor” people and what is the critical difference between “pity” and “compassion”? What’s at stake if we keep referring to those we seek to help as “the poor” without thinking about what that actually means to them (and what it would mean to us if we were in their shoes)?
If we are serious about sustainability, should we start managing or impose stricter standards on the way every day in the world new companies get started that just add to the burden of resource depletion and emissions? Should the right to economic self-actualization overrule the need for environmental stewardship? How should we manage this unbridled activity especially in developing markets where people tend to be less educated or interested in sustainability?
How should we think about choosing careers in the so-called “do-good” jobs of social entrepreneurship, NGOs, philanthropy, impact investing, etc.? How can we make the decision as individually relevant as possible to our own desires and varying needs for ambitious results? Should we care more about how much impact we are having or how we feel about what we do?
How can we define how much we should get engaged in the business of doing good or changing the world? Should we volunteer, work part time, work full time for our cause? How much of our effort is “enough” to achieve those goals? How much is “enough” for our personal satisfaction? What does this depend on?
Don’t ask me why they thought I would be good for this, but somehow I find myself this week with the honor of helping out at I3C with the evaluation of submissions for innovative ideas around financial instruments and vehicles for impact investing proposed by sharp graduate students from all over the place.
In the words of the competition:
The International Impact Investing Challenge is a pitch competition focused on designing investment vehicles that create sustainable impact and are of the size and scope that would be of interest to institutional investors. Graduates students are challenged to propose and defend a sustainable investment strategy for an institutional investor who makes sustainable investments.
Good Profiles feature members of our Good Generation who are either out there in the field doing interesting work or still in the trenches of schools and institutions waiting to make their mark on the world. Have your own story to tell? Know someone who would be great to be profiled? Please sign-up or leave a notehere!
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What do you do for a living nowadays?
I work as the investment manager for Southeast Asia of LGT Venture Philanthropy, a non-profit impact investor with operations in five continents around the world. Our mission is to increase the sustainable quality of life of less-advantaged people, by finding and supporting organizations with outstanding social and environmental impact. We also inspire clients to engage in active philanthropy, and provide philanthropic advisory and implementation services.
As an investment manager for LGT Venture Philanthropy, I am primarily responsible for sourcing and screening potential deals in Southeast Asia. Based in the region, I prepare the relevant investment documents about organizations, and discuss these with my team and board. I am involved in every step of due diligence and deal execution. I am also in charge of monitoring and providing ongoing strategic support to portfolio organizations over the course of our engagement. I represent LGT VP during regional conferences, and more importantly, provide local insight and guidance to LGT VP’s top management regarding the appropriate strategy and approach for Southeast Asia.
This year, for example, we are launching the Impact Ventures Accelerator Program. The iVAP provides hands-on business consulting and customized financial support of up to US$50,000 to outstanding, early-stage social ventures in Southeast Asia with a high potential for scaling-up and positive impact. I developed and pitched this program to our board in response to a perceived need in the region for earlier-stage support of organizations, and in order to build LGT VP’s pipeline and impact in the region.
Themes that caught my attention, interest or made my eyes roll while roaming the web world of doing good:
Encore Fellowships – how to use the potential of OLDER people, instead of YOUNGER people
Toil-o-preneurs – innovations in solving worldwide sanitation problems
Civic responsibility – how to get Americans to find public jobs “cool” again (if ever)
Impact Investing troubles and bubbles – are we on an impact investing bubble since nobody seems able to find all those financially juicy deals that we’ve been promised?
Good (Business) Generation Gaps – discussion on the shift in generations towards doing more social good (btw, this was a “gasp” for me)
Good Profiles feature members of our Good Generation who are either out there in the field doing interesting work or still in the trenches of schools and institutions waiting to make their mark on the world. Have your own story to tell? Know someone who would be great to be profiled? Please sign-up or leave a notehere!
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What do you do for a living nowadays?
I work as a consultant in Boston for FSG, a nonprofit strategy, research, and evaluation consulting firm. I’ve been with FSG since 2009. During my time at FSG, I’ve worked on a range of projects with corporations, nonprofits, foundations, school systems, and other public sector entities. FSG started out as Foundation Strategy Group more than 10 years ago, based on the concept of bringing more strategic thinking into the social sector (particularly the philanthropic sector). Over time FSG has broadened its scope to work with cross-sector players in addressing complex social problems in education, global health, and global development. Most of my work has focused on FSG’s U.S.-based clients, primarily in education and economic development.
Impact investing is the latest hot topic in the do-good community around the world. At its core, the idea of actually “investing” in social-purpose organizations and achieve both “social and environmental” and “financial” returns for money, as an alternative and complement to philanthropy, gets people excited. Whether you think it’s just repackaging of old ideas or a legitimate paradigm shift, this “field” has undeniably gotten significant attention in the last five years.
In Part 1 and Part 2 of this 5-part series, I proposed a 6-step mental checklist that may help you navigate your career in this field, and I started with elaborating on the first two items dealing with identifying opportunities and becoming more aware of your actual role on the job.
In Part 3, I discussed the importance of understanding what type of people and personalities manage impact investment funds to determine compatibility with your own style, but also to get a sense how your negotiation may be influenced by their background.
In Part 4, I suggested that sensing whether or not your impact investor knows what types of organizations she wants to invest in was very informative because it will tell you a lot about your potential life and the long term viability of the fund you are considering.
In this final Part 5, I will ask you to probe for the impact investor’s return expectations as an indication of how much they are in touch with reality and then ultimately how to assess yourself and your preferences before going into that interview.
In Search for a Cause: Do you need one or can you remain “generally” passionate?
Whenever we see profiles of today’s changemakers, we tend to see two flavors: (1) those that champion one specific cause and (2) those that prefer the “general idea” of doing good, which can lead them to serve several causes or “issue areas”, e.g., healthcare, education, poverty, etc. Thus, as more and more young people find inspiration and motivation from their peers and idols around the world to dedicate themselves to a career of doing good, many ask themselves what their personal story will be.
It is actually very easy to follow the story of people being magnetically drawn to a particular issue, say, AIDS or illiteracy, as a matter of personal background or unique experiences. We read about it every day. Joe goes on vacation in Africa, sees some poor people, is moved, ends up staying 5 years living with the locals, eventually returns home, tells a story, raises money, starts some company, does good, gets contacted by NY Times, does interview – BAM, fame, fun, the rest is history. But what about the others?What about the rest of us without an apparent cause?
