Subscribe Sign In Oct 3, 2018,06:49am EDT Impact Investing: The Billionaires Building Change Forbes Wealth TeamForbes Staff Money E leven years ago, at a small gathering at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center in Italy, the term “impact investing” was coined. It was not a new idea, but it finally had an official name. “We gave everyone a rhetorical umbrella under which they could huddle together,” says Antony Bugg-Levine, who convened the meeting and is now the CEO of the Nonprofit Finance Fund. Since then, many financial firms and investors have embraced the term and invested in companies and funds that not only make money but have a measurable, positive social or environmental impact. At least $228 billion is at work in such initiatives, according to the Global Impact Investing Network. Meet 24 billionaires leading the way. Bill and Melinda Gates do impact investing with a twist—using philanthropic dollars from their foundation, with any financial returns staying inside it. Since 2009, it has put about $2 billion into 70 initiatives, including AgBiome, a North Carolina biotech firm working to identify microbes to help crops resist pests and diseases, and Vir Biotechnology in San Francisco, which is developing vaccines for HIV and tuberculosis. The foundation lent $5 million to M-KOPA, a Nairobi startup that enables low-income customers to buy solar-powered lighting and mobile phone charging systems on credit with mobile payments. The Facebook cofounder and his wife Priscilla Chan have invested $100 million across more than a dozen startups, mainly in education, through their Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. Their first lead impact investment was in Andela, a New York-based startup that trains software developers in Africa. About one third of their portfolio is international investments, such as Indian firm Byju’s, a personalized learning app for 4th through 12th grade students in math and science. The former Microsoft CEO is helping schools, nonprofits and social service agencies bring their technology up-to-date. In August, Ballmer and his wife, Connie, said they would invest $59 million in Social Solutions, a software company that helps organizations digitize files and conduct data analytics for the communities they serve. The Ballmers had tried unsuccessfully to tackle the problem with philanthropy, donating money to help Washington State’s child welfare agency better harness data. Through his namesake foundation, the computing tycoon has invested in education technology companies in India, which teach skills ranging from “English-language fluency, to repairing cars, to learning optometry.” The foundation previously invested in the Unitus Seed Fund, an accelerator for Indian health, education, fintech and mobile startups. Powell Jobs has quietly built a 140-plus person philanthropic, investment and advocacy entity, Emerson Collective, which partners with entrepreneurs, policymakers and advocates to advance social causes and access to education. Emerson Collective has invested in startups that provide tools for improving government accountability (public sector budgeting software OpenGov), climate change (environmental sensor network Alcima) and education (such as the edtech tracking tool for schools, LearnPlatform). The late Microsoft cofounder’s foundation, Vulcan, focuses much of its impact investing work on Africa. It owns ten solar-powered micro-grids in Kenya, which provide electricity to villages with a combined 21,000 residents, and funds a low-cost internet provider, Mawingu Networks, also based in Kenya. Vulcan says it concentrates on projects with the potential to impact one million lives or more. Dalio's family has made about $100 million of impact investments over his lifetime, about one third of them just in 2017. Two areas of focus are emerging market technologies that promote education and health, and financial inclusion in the US. Ebay’s founder set up the Omidyar Network in 2004, before the phrase “impact investing” existed. He’s put more than $600 million, including $100 million in 2017, into startups that tackle issues like climate change and affordable education. In 2010 he invested in solar-powered lighting startup d.light, which brings electricity to communities with limited power access in over 60 countries. It has reached more than 80 million people with products like solar-powered lanterns, chargers and radios. Two years later he invested in Ruma, a financial and information services company in Indonesia that trained 10,000 low-income entrepreneurs (mostly women). It was acquired by Indonesian ride-hailing firm Go-Jek in 2017. CREDITS: AP Photo/Ted S. Warren; Abaca Press/Blondet Eliot/Sipa USA/Newscom; Courtesy of Steve Ballmer; Simon Dawson/Bloomberg; Courtesy of the Emerson Collective; Courtesy of Paul Allen; Jason Alden/Bloomberg; Michele Clement For Forbes Forbes Wealth Team Reprints & Permissions Cookies on Forbes YOUR CHOICES REGARDING COOKIES ON THIS SITE Please choose whether this site may use cookies or related technologies such as web beacons, pixel tags, and Flash objects ("Cookies") as described below. You can learn more about how this site uses cookies and related technologies by reading our privacy policy linked to below. Your choices on this site will be applied globally. This means that your settings will be available on other sites that set your choices globally. You can change your mind and revisit your preferences at any time by accessing the "Cookie on Forbes" button on the left side of this site. While we need to use required cookies to make our site work, we won't set optional cookies unless you enable them. 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