No matter, the growth has been exponential.
According to Tiburon, the key drivers of the markets are:
· Impact investments are designed to both deliver adequate financial returns and address key social & environmental issues
· Impact investing has emerged because of the growing number of wealthy investors willing to put their capital toward social good, a growing population of younger people pushing social causes, and entrepreneurs hungry for capital
· Impact investing is also a response to some of the shortcomings in existing financing methods and existing methods for enacting positive social change, including government aid and charitable contributions
· Traditional investment managers and banks are not positioned to address emerging needs
· The funding gap is too big to come from government and or charitable contributions
The institutionalization of impact investment products will make them more mainstream. This means not only standardization of certain products, but also more widely adopted impact investing platforms. These are likely to make comparisons among impact investment products easier, according to Tiburon. They will also require the alignment of philanthropic partners and financial partners.
The advent of these platforms is already being seen at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, US Bank, and JP Morgan. If Tiburon's report is accurate, there will be much more adoption and adaptation by the brokerage community at large.