The ESG Initiative's Head of Research Maoz (Michael) Brown will be speaking to the American Evaluation Association's Social Impact Measurement group on March 22nd on his research on the challenge of measuring impact performance. This event is open to all and registration is free.
Impact investors have a lot on their to-do lists: all the conventional activities of investing, plus the challenges of combatting climate change, closing educational gaps, overcoming racial injustice, and tackling the myriad other entrenched and persistent problems we face. Given those hefty responsibilities, should we expect impact investing to be more difficult than value-neutral investing? In this presentation, Michael will review novel data on the difficulty of impact investing, and will argue that evaluations of contribution (i.e., additionality) in impact investing need to focus more on the burdens that impact investors shoulder in their work. Additionally, he will explore the implications of this argument for how investors and evaluators should assess and report impact.