Week Eleven Reflection

In week eleven, I learned about Impact Investing. The study materials consisted of Impact Investing is Hot Right Now. Here's Why. by Tracy Mayor, A Closer Look at Impact Investing by Vivek Pandit and Toshan Tamhane, Impact Investing. Just A Trend or The Best Strategy To Help Save Our World? by JP Dallmann, a video titled "Three Things: What is Impact Investing?", and Impact Investing: Your Money Doing Good in the World – and Your Wallet by Kevin Peterson. One key takeaway from this week's topic is impact investing directs capital to enterprises that generate social or environmental benefits. A couple examples would be putting money towards affordable housing, sustainable timberland, and eye-care clinics. The three things about impact investing is it emerged as a result of failure of philanthropists to address social problems, the money goes towards local entrepreneurs who have a better idea of where to directly place the money such as food supply, access to clean water, and education. The second thing about impact investing is not every socially inclined investment is impact investing. Impact Investors make it the core of their business rather than just a side piece. Third, expecting financial return is important for many reasons. Investing into something means one expects some kind of financial return over time. When one invests, but does not expect any money in return should really be considered a donor instead.

What I found really confusing about this week's topic is just how investors enter and exit out of businesses, seeding, growing, and scaling social enterprises. All of it is really confusing and frustrating to me. I have tried to read the assigned articles and watch the videos a few times, but my mind still has a hard time comprehending the content for this week. What I have shared in the above paragraph is just about the limit of what I was able to understand and that was pretty much it. I do not think Impact Investing will ever be one of my things in this life and I am perfectly fine with that.

Now, Muhammad Yunus wants poverty to only exist in museums. I do not think that could ever be possible. There will always be people with more money than others, just as there will always be people with less money than others. It is not possible to make things absolutely equal throughout the world. Some work harder than others, some jobs have more value than others, and so on. It wouldn't be fair for an ice cream server to earn the same wage as a cardiologist. Some may argue poverty could also mean living below the minimum amount of money required to live with the bare essentials such as food, health, and shelter. If that is the case, it is still not feasible to see poverty only exist in museums because there will always be individuals that need to live in a specific area to access the kind of healthcare or education they may need to get further in life or to just survive.