Investing for Good. Why we started Impvest and how you can…
Tags: About Me, Sustainability, Submission, Publication, Impact Investing

Investing with Impact

Photo by Micheile Henderson on Unsplash

“Financial peace isn’t the acquisition of stuff. It’s learning to live on less than you make, so you can GIVE money back and have money to invest. You can’t win until you do this.” — Dave Ramsey

Growing up as the son of two wealthy investor parents, success for me was defined by the dollar$ and cent$. My weekend playground was in real estate showrooms. My holidays were spent travelling the world while my parents looked for the next big deal. My family friends that visited me were top executive friends and clients that drove big cars and lived in mansions. My childhood friends were all “destined” by their parents to be doctors, lawyers and CEOs.

So from a young age, I aimed to be rich and become a big-time investor like my parents. BUT my vision of my parents changed one day when we visited my mother’s hometown.

My mum is a first-generation immigrant from a developing nation. And one school holiday she brought me from the glistering and bright lights of the city back to the rice padi fields of her hometown. I went from fast cars and 5-star hotels to trishaws and backwater motels.

But beyond the change of the place, what shocked me more was the people!

Over the next few days, tens of people came to meet her. All were full of love and warmth that I have never felt before. One by one, they introduced themselves as recipients financial aid from my mum over the decades.

There were grown men who were telling stories of how her funds had helped them get into law school and change their family destiny.

Families who almost lost it all due to a flood but managed to get back on their feet through her funds

Entrepreneurs who received seed funding to set up their shop, clinic and rice fields

What shocked me more was often the amounts cited mere measly numbers that could barely buy a mid-range LV or Chanel bag back in the city. Yet for many of these people, this amount of money was changing and even saving lives.

It was then I found my calling in life:

I wanted to invest with IMPACT…IMPVEST!

Why I started Impvest

While I have known my whole life that my calling is to invest for good, it was only in recent years did I discover how to describe it through the concept of impact investing and sustainable finance.

After working in sustainable development professionally and investing for good personally in the past decade, I have realized that the concepts around impact investing are not well understood.

Investors do not understand the complexity of sustainability.

Sustainable experts do not get the language and motivation of the market.

And most people still are framing all these issues in the traditional economic models of 1980s capitalism/socialism.

They are not considering the impact of digitalization and technology that has to lead to a world of capital without capital.

Thus, I have started ImpVest to make impact investing a greater force for good by intelligent and thoughtful decisions through insightful yet simple to understand articles.

About ImpVest

1. Who are we?

In short: Impvest is for anyone who wants to make the world better through impact investing.

You do not have to be a sophisticated investor.

Our target readers and contributors include

Personal investors seeking to be more responsible in his investing

Policymakers or economists sharing or learning new economic models for their country or company

Sustainable advocate trying to reform capitalism to become a force for good

A company sharing their journey in increasing its corporate giving

Regardless of where they are on their impact investing path, we at Impvest aim to be this one virtual hub of resources, guides and inspiration.

We want them to know they are not alone, and we are here to turn impact investing into reality and make a difference in the world!

2. What do we provide?

Basically, we at Impvest give away free P.I.E.S. 🥧🥧🥧

Principles + Instructions+ Equipping+ Sharing

Principles of Impact Investing: Venture Philanthropy, Sustainable finance, sustainable capitalism, Creating shared values, Economics of Mutuality, etc Instructions: Practical guides teaching topics like portfolio management, Sustainable report, Environmental assessment, etc Equipping and resources: Sharing of tools, books, institutions that can help equip impact investors Sharing: Case studies of companies or organizations that are successful impact investors or are influencing the impact investing world

PLUS

We also actively share our contents on LinkedIn to get our content to reach more people.

3. How can I be published?

If you’re wondering how to increase your chances of becoming one of our writers, give us both quality and quantity of:

Content: While we do not want to limit your creativity, please make sure you provide enough substance in your stories. We encourage our writers to take time to curate a long post with substance than frequent one point posts. Writing Quantity: Please give us a post that requires at least 6–7 mins of reading. Impvest is not a Facebook or Linkedin page to post short content. We want our platform to be a place of deep insights and anything less than 6–7 mins reading time is insufficient. Writing Quality: Unlike other publications that emphasize writing quality, we are more forgiving in this aspect. However, we do expect at least our writers to be grammatically correct. We encourage the use of Grammarly to all our writers. Insights: Please write insightful pieces that contribute to the body of knowledge on impact investing and relevant topics. While we do not have a strict policy, we will reject pieces that are deemed click baits or overly promotional. References: Please provide references. No need formal references and citations (although plus points if you do) but at least provide your sources in text or by a mention. Learn from others: We do not encourage plagiarism (as per medium policy), but we are ok if you get inspired by the style, format or structure of others. In fact, we encourage you to read other writers pieces to learn how to improve and be part of this community!

4. How to submit?

Please submit your UNPUBLISHED DRAFTS by filling up the form below:

Best Regards and thank you for reading!

Ye Jiangwei