Impact Investing: A Primer for Family Offices

The World Economic Forum's primer outlines how family offices can transition to impact investing, which is defined as an approach seeking both financial returns and actively measured positive social or environmental impacts. The document details a five-step process—defining vision, determining engagement strategy, developing guidelines, executing the strategy, and evaluating the portfolio—while highlighting the unique catalytic potential of family offices due to their investment autonomy and long-term horizons. It explores various asset classes suitable for impact, from community bank deposits and green bonds to private equity and sustainable real estate, and identifies key risks such as liquidity, manager experience, and impact measurement challenges.

• Impact investing is defined as an investment approach that "intentionally seeks to create both financial return as well as positive social and/or environmental impacts that are actively measured."
• Family offices are uniquely positioned to scale the impact investing sector because they possess "greater discretion and independence in investment decisions" compared to pension funds or insurance companies, and are often guided by "inter-generational legacy" rather than solely financial metrics.
• Demographic shifts are driving demand for impact investing, including a projected $41 trillion wealth transfer from baby boomers to Millennials, who are more socially conscious; nearly 30% of Millennials believe the primary priority of business should be to "improve society."
• Impact investing can be applied across diverse asset classes, including cash (community banks), fixed income (green bonds), private equity, public equities (via the Social Stock Exchange), real estate (affordable housing), and infrastructure (wind power).
• The report proposes a five-step engagement framework for family offices: 1) Define Vision, 2) Determine Engagement Strategy, 3) Develop Investment Guidelines, 4) Execute Investment Strategy, and 5) Evaluate Portfolio and Adjust Investment Strategy.
• Family offices can adopt four primary structuring approaches: 'Test the waters' (small carve-outs of 1-10%), committing to high-impact funds/companies, seeding new investment vehicles, or integrating impact across the entire portfolio.
• Investors face specific risks in the impact sector, including liquidity risk due to long-term investments without clear exit strategies, manager risk because many lack established track records, and "measurement and reporting risk" regarding the accuracy of impact assessments.
• The document distinguishes impact investing from other sustainable strategies, placing it at the end of a progression that begins with "Exclusionary Screens" and "ESG Integration," moving toward increasing "impact intent, measurement, and reporting."

APA

World Economic Forum (2014). Impact Investing: A Primer for Family Offices. http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEFUSA_FamilyOfficePrimer_Report.pdf

Chicago

World Economic Forum. Impact Investing: A Primer for Family Offices. 2014. http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEFUSA_FamilyOfficePrimer_Report.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Economic Forum |title=Impact Investing: A Primer for Family Offices |date=December 2014 |url=http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEFUSA_FamilyOfficePrimer_Report.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldeconomicforum2014impact, author = {{World Economic Forum}}, title = {{Impact Investing: A Primer for Family Offices}}, institution = {World Economic Forum}, year = {2014}, month = dec, url = {http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEFUSA_FamilyOfficePrimer_Report.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }