Impact investing is part of the decades-old tradition of corporate social responsibility. The author focuses on community development entities, which are nonprofit charitable organizations with the capacity to manage and deploy capital to provide a “helping hand” through investment for at-risk populations and regions. He notes how the impact investing and community development fields share goals of helping create healthy and sustainable communities.

The policy and practice of impact investing burst onto global investing markets following the financial crisis of 2008. Articles and academic treatises on the topic abound. Governments, banks, foundations, and a plethora of private and public advocates and institutions wealth managers, managers of mutual and pension funds, endowments of religious organizations and universities have been looking at ways to steer their capital into more socially responsible investments.