ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores the complex set of motivations that affect investor and donor decisions and the resources that investors can contribute to create impact. It considers ways investors can choose social causes to support, the approaches for addressing these causes, and the populations or regions to target. The book analyses options for structuring and targeting investments and describes alternative roles, both active and passive, investors can take in those organizations. It explains the basic avenues through which organizations create positive and negative social impacts—through products and services, through operations, and through investments. The book examines the essential ingredients for planning and guiding impact creation: missions, strategies, theories of change, and logic models. It provides the basic technical and behavioral concepts associated with measuring performance in general and social impacts in particular.
