All of SAIIN’s work will be underpinned by research into the practice, policies, regulatory issues and other key factors influencing impact investment both in South Africa and abroad. SAIIN’s first body of research, undertaken over an 18 month period aimed to begin the process of understanding the impact investment landscape in South Africa, specifically as it pertained to the potential for social enterprises and similar community social development institutions to absorb substantial impact investment finance. In addition, this research aimed to begin the process of building the visibility of community investment opportunities within South Africa, to enhance investor understanding of the needs and opportunities for investment in social purpose initiative that yield a high social and/or environmental impact together a financial return, and to speak to the need for a South African Impact Investing Network.
The overall objective of this study was to identify those social enterprises or social development organisations most capable of acting as Implementing Agents for financial investment in high social value impact investment opportunities, and to define the main issues that these organisations experience. Ultimately this study will hopefully also inform a strategy of targeted engagement in order to best support and build capacity within these organisations so that they are able to absorb social capital to scale and maximize the social and environmental impact of their investments.
The SAIIN Conference scheduled for October 28th and 29th will form the final component of the research to inform this report and will provide social enterprises and community investment institutions more broadly with a voice within the report and the potential to validate the findings, deepen the research and enhance investor understanding of the needs of the sector. We hope that it will also be able to advance the various policy and regulatory reviews already beginning across the social enterprise sector in South Africa.
A preliminary report on this research is now available and you can request a copy of this by completing the registration form here.