Darren Walker and his staff have been preparing for months to present the final proposal for Mission Related Investments (MRIs) to the Ford Foundation’s Board. Many well-respected investors as well as trustees of leading nonprofits had expressed uncertainty about whether MRIs were compatible with a board’s fiduciary duties. Darren wondered if his board held the same view. This case will explore the process and structuring considerations that the Ford Foundation grappled with to set up their Mission Related Investment Program.

Mark Tercek, Charlotte Kaiser, and the NatureVest team have spent almost a decade structuring investments in conservation. While proud of their work to date, the $200M they have raised is insignificant compared to the billions experts estimate is needed to meet annual conservation needs. What role should investment capital play? What role should TNC play?

Social Finance US was founded 2011 to bring the concept of the "social impact bond" (SIB) to the United States. SIBs were a novel, albeit complex financing instrument to allow private investment capital to fund and scale social service providers, wherein government repaid investors based on performance. Tracy Palandjian (MBA 1997) examines early successes, and grapples with how to design use investment capital to create social change.

In 2015, Goldman Sachs acquired Imprint Capital, a small but well-known impact investing advisory firm - a widely touted example of impact investing going mainstream. The case examines Imprint’s integration into the asset management platform at Goldman Sachs and how the approach to clients evolved post acquisition. Students will look at impact investing in the context of the asset management industry and explore portfolio construction strategies for the firm’s clients and explore the concept of mass customization for impact investing.

In 2015 Root Capital, a pioneer in the impact investing space, began to explore how to more systematically integrate impact and financial management. After much deliberation, Root Capital landed on ex-ante rating system for any potential investment that produced a proprietary expected impact. With this tool in place, Root Capital had an integrated picture of impact and financial performance for a loan and across its portfolio. The next question Root capital faced was how to use this tool to optimize impact and financial performance going forward. This case was designed to be taught alongside Root Capital’s Efficient Impact Frontier Simulation exercise.

This case examines an asset class critical to global economic growth, but often overlooked in the impact investment space: infrastructure. We will examine the role an equity investor can play in in the context of a Public Private Partnership in Madagascar, one of the poorest countries on earth.

In 2016, Wellington launched the first-ever public market impact investing fund. This case explores the process of building a new impact investing product within a leading asset manager. In addition, the case examines two fundamental questions about impact investing in public markets: Can an impact investing strategy in public markets generate alpha? And, how can you measure, manage, and communicate impact in a public markets context?

OpenInvest is a San Francisco-based startup founded in 2015 that uses “Robo advising” to enable retail investors to customize their portfolio as per their individual preferences. OpenInvest seeks to combine the strengths of both index investing and personalized impact portfolios. Examples of the latter include a lower-carbon portfolio, or a portfolio that underweights firms associated with gun violence.

Acumen Fund is a pioneering global venture capital firm with a dual purpose: it looks for a return on its investments, and it also seeks entrepreneurial solutions to global poverty. This case will examine the evolution of Acumen's impact measurement.

Today we will examine one of the fastest-growing microfinance organization in the world, SKS Microfinance. The first caselet examines the investment decision when Vikram Akula, the founder, seeks venture capital funding. The case centers around valuation and strategic aspects of raising money.

A pioneer in the venture impact investing, DBL now commands over $400M in assets under management, delivering top quartile returns. This case asks students to critically examine and analyze DBL's investment strategy as it seeks to deploy $400m, as well as evaluate a specific investment in a solar power company targeting low-income consumers in Tanzania.

BANEX, a microfinance bank in Nicaragua, once a darling in the impact investing space, is now in crisis, due to high loan defaults. This case examines how impact investors should consider financial and social returns in a situation of financial distress