Making Money Matter: Impact Investing to Change the World - Hardcover

"Buy this book! The world of impact investing is emerging as a mainstream investment them. Ben Bingham's book is a valuable primer in learning about this new field of investment and how to profit from the transition to a low carbon economy but also benefitting humanity." -- Peter C. Fusaro, Chairman, Global Change Associates and founder of the Wall Street Green Summit "As this book helps make clear, the Divest-Invest movement is helping change the way we think about money. Investors can play a big role in challenging the lockstep craziness of the status quo; if you've got money, this may be the biggest dividend it can pay!" -- Bill McKibben, author Deep Economy "Ben Bingham is one of a small band of pioneer asset managers who brings in a long-term, whole systems view. This book belongs on every investor's shelf." -- Dr. Hazel Henderson, author, Mapping the Global Transition to the Solar Age, President, Ethical Markets Media (USA & Brazil) "We live in a world that believes the primary purpose of money is to make more money. What we invest in matters little, as long as those investments generate handsome returns. This dangerous belief is based on a fundamental misconception that you can't make money and do good at the same time. Benjamin Bingham ... has the courage to dispel this myth and show you how you can make money by aligning your investments with your values." --Jeffrey Hollender, Co-Founder, Executive Chairperson, Seventh Generation, Inc., co-founder of the American Sustainable Business Council "This is an important book. Benjamin Bingham puts meaning into money. The book is full of pragmatic wisdom and it shows that you can use the power of money in the service of people and our fragile planet earth. Read this book and it will empower you to embrace ethical values to transform your business in a force for good." -- Satish Kumar, Editor-in-Chief, Resurgence & Ecologist magazine. "In my work with the indigenous people of the planet and with those in the modern world who want to change our dream, money is a resource that is either seen to be scarce or disconnected from the profound truths we all share in our depths. Ben Bingham's Making Money Matter is an important new conversation about money as a brilliant tool for expressing our best human qualities and creating the world we want." -- Lynne Twist, author of The Soul of Money: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Life "Ben Bingham is one of my most trusted sources for wise thinking on money and investment. He is a deep humanist with a very sharp analytical mind -- an unabashedly intimate and holistic writer on finance in a publishing universe dominated by the passionless and impersonal. Making Money Matter viscerally evokes the impact in impact investing, and puts authentic sustainability context into the middle of the investment conversation. Ben's is a gentle, harmonic, and immeasurably poignant voice -- he is the Henry David Thoreau, the Wendell Berry of impact investing." -- Laurie Lane-Zucker, Founder & CEO at Impact Entrepreneur & Impact Alchemist "Making Money Matters is an important addition to the conversation and work that needs to be done to invest in a sustainable economy and future. Thanks to Bingham we have more tools to help us all invest our money so it brings a financial return as well as generating social and environmental benefit. A winning formula!" -- David Levine, Cofounder & CEO, American Sustainable Business Council

The way we think about money has extraordinary impact. This book satisfies the growing longing for a financial overview that can provide practical advice and demonstrate how money is a social tool. Making Money Matter introduces the reader to common money mistakes, and the dysfunctional nature of the current financial framework. Its overview of the SRI world will inspire investors to push their advisors' envelope while providing new strategies to meet the demand for positive impact. It provides a philosophical basis for transforming our view of money from an end unto itself to a means to change the world for the better. This book traces the author's journey from early financial innocence to an appreciation of how money works and how it can be transformed. People who care about the planet and society at large need a bridge from deeply felt values to practical understanding and advice that will lead to a new money paradigm. This new approach covers all aspects of money from everyday transactions to high impact investment options. It describes a new investment paradigm that will support both reasonable returns and long-term societal and planetary health. Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) is well established for smaller scale investors in the public space and impact investing for accredited and qualified investors is taking hold in the private-space. Readers want more than flat definitions, and need an inclusive overview that can inspire investors on all levels to move the trillions required for addressing the world's many dire problems. This book's unique contribution is a personal, practical and holistic approach to socially conscious investing, which engages the reader in a way that is both healing and empowering. Making Money Matter is designed for mass appeal. First, its biographical, true-confessions format introduces the reader to common money mistakes made by the author, while personalizing the dysfunctional nature of the current financial framework. Secondly, its personalized overview of the countermovement of socially-conscious investment options is designed to inspire investors to push their advisors' advice-envelope while providing investment managers with practical new strategies to meet the burgeoning demand for positive impact. Finally, this book provides a philosophical basis for the new money paradigm that shows how to transform our view of money from an end unto itself to a means to change the world for the better. This book is aimed at people who are concerned about Wall Street, banking and our current monetary and finance system, average investors, businessmen, progressives, libertarians or fiscal conservatives. However it should be of particular interest to investment professionals looking for new ways of meeting their clients' needs. Investment managers and consultants need to be educated about this space. This book should be as popular among family office associations as the Chartered Financial Analysts Association. But this book's ultimate goal is to provide inspiration to all levels of investors. Everyone uses money, and the way we think about money has more impact than all the impact investments put together. This thinking needs to change. Just as consumers drove the growth of the local and organic movements, investors will drive the new money paradigm. This may help anyone to begin to think about the real bottom line of every transaction, which is the impact of our actions on the planet - including all living beings that inhabit it.