For a long time, the common wisdom has separated philanthropy — that is, donations of financial resources toward social change — from investing, which is meant to support purely financial interests. However, impact investing — a term coined by the Rockefeller Foundation in 2007 — has grown as a movement by demonstrating that investing for returns does not have to be mutually exclusive with doing good.

1) Impact investing is the practice of making purposeful investments that help achieve social benefits – while generating financial returns. In the charitable space, impact investing has been embraced by several prominent foundations to ensure that assets committed to advancing social good through grant-making are invested in projects that align with those values.