Let’s start by getting real here when it comes to social change.

Real is the harm that the global economy has caused through centuries of extractive practices.

Real are the challenges that decades of ineffective charitable work have caused in covering up structural economic problems that ensure the persistence of poverty and inequity.

Real is the potential for a new field called impact investment — the practice of investing not just for profit, but also for social benefit — to completely restructure the global economy, making social and environmental responsibility integral to how we move money through society, rather than an afterthought.

Real is the fact that impact investment is already being done on a massive scale by a limited number of people. It’s the trillion-dollar trend most people have never heard of.

Real is the fact that impact investment is in danger of replicating the same mistakes of the aid industry by focusing on palliative rather than structural change, and by choosing outside “experts” as its leaders, rather than responding more to those whose expertise is grounded in a lived reality.

Read the source article at medium.com