Message from Sir Ronald Cohen:

Dear Friends,

Welcome to the first edition of the quarterly GSG NEWS. At the GSG, our mission is to bring together leading impact practitioners from around the world as National Advisory Boards (NABs) to drive a global impact investment movement. This newsletter will help us connect our 16 NABs across 16 countries & European Union (and growing!) with updates, trends, sector analysis and events. I hope it will also facilitate our journey to the Tipping Point by 2020. You can read the news from our NABs below, along with links to original stories, which we encourage you to share far and wide across your networks. We started the quarter with a tremendous GSG Impact Summit 2017 in Chicago, USA, and ended with an Asia- Pacific Declaration on Social Enterprise and Impact Investment in Christchurch, New Zealand at the Social Enterprise World Forum.

The Impact Investment sector received positive attention this quarter: President Emmanuel Macron in France announced a French Social Business Act in 2018. India NAB launched McKinsey’s extensive study of Impact Investment in India. The study concluded impact returns to be 11% across ~500 transaction and ~50 exits in India. In the UK, the Ministry of Justice released the final results of the world’s first Social Impact Bond, at Peterborough Prison, demonstrating a 9% reduction in reoffending, and paying out a 3.1 percent per annum return to investors. The UK NAB also launched an excellent report, titled “The Rise of Impact”, setting out important policy recommendations, which will interest you all. So, exciting news rolled in from many directions.

We have recently implemented a number of new initiatives. This quarter, we launched three of our six working groups: Impact Wholesalers, R&D-based Impact Enterprises, and Widening & Deepening the Market. We have also been working hard to support the establishment of Social Finance India as part of our efforts to launch a significant India Education Outcomes Fund. This, along with our 2018 Summit in India, will bring exciting new developments to the subcontinent!

Finally, I am delighted to announce that Krisztina Tora has picked up the baton from Sebastian Welisiejko as our new Director of Market Development. You will be hearing from her quite soon. Please do share with us developments from your part of the world.

Do Good, Do Well!

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