IMPACT MANAGEMENT PROJECT
Impact Frontiers Asia
Programme starts in July 2022.
Introduction
Impact Frontiers Asia
Impact Frontiers Asia supports investors to build new capabilities to manage impact and integrate impact into their investment practices. Through confidential structured meetings, cohort members experiment with new approaches, share their tools and experiences, learn from peers, benefit from thought partnership and advance the state of impact management practice in the sector.
It’s been designed for asset managers of all asset classes and for asset owners such as family offices, foundations and endowments.
By teaming with AVPN as Asia’s largest social investing network, Impact Frontiers Asia will provide participating investors will develop and fine-tune investment strategies designed to achieve integrated financial, social, and environmental goals, and share what they learn for the benefit of investors across Asia and worldwide.
We believe Impact Frontiers Asia will elevate the field of impact investing — increasing the transparency of the capital markets in creating impact; enabling investors to allocate capital more accurately and efficiently toward impact; and drawing new investors off the sidelines. We expect the program will help to shift capital into proven impact investments that contribute to a fair, just and ecologically sustainable world.
Impact Frontiers is an ecosystem-wide initiative of the Impact Management Project (IMP). Investors in the Asia cohort will become part of a global network of investor cohorts in the US, UK, Canada, and Latin America.
Benefits
Program Benefits
Integrate impact-financial performance
Use your own data to create your own approach, customized to your organization’s unique context, strategy, and goals.
Get support in building buy-in and leading change within your organization.
Lean on thought partnership from Impact Frontiers, AVPN, the IMP, and other initiative partners.
Collaboration drives learning and innovation
Explore challenges specific to individual asset classes.
Cross-fertilize ideas across asset classes, investor types, and geographies.
Work together to find ways to improve the flow of impact information between companies, asset managers, and asset owners.
Emphasis on confidentiality
Safe forum in which leading investors can experiment with new approaches, learn from peers, and advance shared goals.
Workshops and meetings held under Chatham House Rule.
All cohort members sign non-disclosure agreements to hold all materials confidential.
Information
Impact Frontiers Asia Info Session
AVPN and Impact Frontiers held an info session on 30 March 2021 with a group of investors where the program was discussed and questions were fielded.
By AVPN
Impact Frontiers Asia Info Session
What
Who should join this program?
Asset managers of all asset classes and for asset owners such as family offices, foundations and endowments.
Participating Investors should be prepared to share and discuss portfolio data in the small group meetings, which will be run on Chatham House rules. Please contact your AVPN market rep for more information on how to participate.
Content
Participating investors will address four foundational questions that any impact investor faces:
Impact Risk and Return | Financial Risk and Return | |
|---|---|---|
Investment Level | Which investments offer more expected impact? | Which investments offer more risk-adjusted financial return? |
Portfolio Level | How would you measure, set goals for, and communicate the impact of a portfolio of investments? | How would you measure, set goals for, and communicate the risk-adjusted financial return of a portfolio of investments? |
Structure
Program Structure
As they develop their organizations’ approaches to impact management and impact-financial integration, participating investors will receive support through a variety of forums:
- Core content workshops delivered and tailored to AVPN cohort members as a group
- Small-group peer feedback sessions among subsets of the AVPN cohort
- Global, cross-cohort topical working groups and webinars on cross-cutting themes (e.g., racial equity, gender, climate, investor contribution, etc.)
Participating investors will follow a tested, flexible sequence of steps. This process is based on the experience of the first Impact Frontiers cohort from 2018-2020, which published a handbook on impact-financial integration.
Agenda
Program Overview
By 15 May 2021
Confirm All Participating Investors in Program
27 May 2021
Program Kickoff
June 2021
Creating an Expected Impact Rating (Or Other Measure of Transactions’ Expected Impact)
- Selecting a measure of risk-adjusted financial return
July-August 2021
“Getting to Know You” Sessions
22 september 2021
Impact Weighted Accounts Initiative by Rob Zochowski (Harvard Business School)
30 september 2021
Impact Management Platform: Sneak Peak with Olivia Prentice
OCTOber 2021
Impact Management Platform
- For enterprises
- For investors
november 2021
Advanced Topics
- Who
decEMber 2021
Advanced Topics
- What & How much
- Contribution
JANUARY 2022
Advanced Topics
- Impact valuation
Plotting Your Portfolio: Impact X Risk-Adjusted Financial Return
FEBRUARY 2022
Determining Implications for Investment Decision Rules
- Rules of thumb
- Benchmarking tools
- Hurdle rates
Constructing an Integrated Portfolio Dashboard
MarCH 2022
Setting Portfolio Goals and Reporting Performance
AprIL 2022
Communicating Your Impact Management Approach Internally and Externally
May-AugUST 2022
Optional Capstone Presentations
TESTIMONIALS
What do our members think about AVPN?
We found a lot of value in the cohort model. The sequence of workshops consistently challenged me to think ahead to the next step as we built our new impact management approach. And I gained an amazing set of peers to go to on anything from technical questions on impact ratings to how to build consensus with our internal team and Board
Caitlin Rosser
Calvert Impact Capital
The importance of the visual rhetoric of the tools cannot be overestimated. The charts convey that the impact analytics are now at the same level of rigor as the financial analytics…When you integrate the impact with risk and return you will end up with the same clarity and power as people have come to expect on the financial side.
Tony Berkley
Prudential Financial
Working with Impact Frontiers was an enriching, engaging experience that informed and enhanced BlueHub’s IMM practice. In collaboration with Mike and the Impact Frontiers peers, I refined our social impact rating, developed and iterated a process for incorporating that rating into our financing decisions, and began the process of developing a related tool focused specifically on assessing investment potential to advance racial equity. My organization and I are still benefiting from learnings gleaned through the cohort and my Impact Frontiers peers remain my “go-to” group for advice and insights in this practice.
Catherine Dun Rappaport
BlueHub Capital
These days, there are innumerable self-proclaimed impact investing and ESG experts and channels to learn from them. That said, I found the experience of working with fellow IMM practitioners in the structure and programming led by Mike McCreless, and the IMP team, to be an incomparable and irreplaceable experience. It was a collaborative space to try new approaches, solve technical challenges, and on occasion, celebrate successes with peer practitioners. My fellow cohort members have become critical partners, co-investors, and friends and it is a pleasure to see how they each continue to push our field further.
Shu Dar Yao
RSF Social Finance
Convenors
Key Convenors
Investors
Participating Investors for Inaugural May 2021 Cohort
Frequently Asked Questions
Participating investors are asked to contribute USD30,000 towards the program.
Program fees will go toward all cohort activities over the 15 months, including core content workshops, facilitated peer feedback sessions, and topical working groups and sessions on global, cross-cutting themes. Participating investors can also receive optional bilateral engagement with Impact Frontiers and AVPN as desired e.g., document review, thought partnership, strategy discussion.
This is a flexible program. Participating investors will likely spend four hours a month on the program, but some months may spend no time or up to eight hours a month, due to workshops, peer feedback sessions, and optional webinars.
Each organisation can have up to 2 representatives joining each Impact Frontiers Asia session and this will help to keep the overall group size and discussions manageable. Participating Investors are free to rotate their choice of representatives in each session.
There will be no refunds in the event whereby you cannot complete the program.
