micro-investment - Platform Technology Supporting Social Outcomes


Calvert Foundation has built two micro-investment platforms. Microplace was the first and is the new one. These sorts of platforms built specifically to sustainably generate social outcomes are essential progress.

"One of the things we learned from MicroPlace was we need to drive hard at a simple user experience, MicroPlace had a lot of bells and whistles, but there was a lot of information people needed to fill out, so there was significant drop-off." tries to be more like crowd-funding in terms of its accessibility.

Impact investing needs to learn from consumer web sites if it's going to attract more consumers. "We're trying to break through the bubble that's almost impenetrable in this community. It's a whole bunch of people talking to themselves and not getting outside that sphere," he says. "It's really a lot reformed i-bankers who want to do something better with themselves. We don't have a lot of talent around communications and digital." -FastCo

Part of Solution

  • Ours to Own: Small Investments Create Strong Communities

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    • Fast Company article

      Impact investing has the potential to leverage serious capital for social purposes. But, as we saw recently, it hasn't yet emerged as the force it could be. There's a need for better measurement and metrics to satisfy data-hungry funders, as well as an expanded range of investors. At the moment, the field is associated mostly with institutional funds, big foundations, and well-meaning one-percent types. It's still not a movement for the rest of us.