The Good Your Money Can Do

By Eva Yazhari

“Why would you want to take this investment out of your portfolio?”

My investment advisor was all smiles. We were sitting across from each other in a beautiful conference room overlooking Lake Zurich in the sophisticated Swiss banking city. It was the fall of 2011. For months, I had been telling him that I wanted my investments to align more with my values, explaining that much of the rest of my life was already in alignment. But he was not getting the message.

I tried again. “I do not want to own part of a large tobacco company. It is not what I consider a life-affirming investment. There are plenty of other opportunities to make money.”

He politely waved me off, laying his best investor-speak on my husband and me.

“But this is a good debt investment for you, and it fits into your portfolio return mandate,” he said.

I wanted to object again, but I could already tell he would not listen. Soon, the meeting was over, and we had politely talked about my life savings as if they belonged to a person with different values than my own. Walking out of the office, I felt as if I had been shamed for demanding more from my money, for wanting to live by my values, and for questioning the judgment of an experienced wealth advisor.

Worse than that, I felt powerless. I cared deeply about where my money was invested. In fact, I had staked my whole career on the idea that it could be invested in alignment with my principles. Five years earlier, I had left my career on Wall Street, moved to Zurich with my husband for his career, and pivoted to pursue impact investing, a growing approach to investing based on using your resources to create a positive impact. In the years that followed, I had fully committed to aligning all areas of my life with my values and living more sustainably. I knew that I still had a ways to go to get where I wanted to be, but I also knew that I had done a lot of good with my money in a relatively short amount of time—and the pursuit was possible.

All of that felt insignificant now. If I could not get my investment advisor to listen to me, then what good was I doing? Despite my best intentions, was I nothing more than a hypocrite?

That night, something struck me: my financial advisor thought he was doing what was right. He was trying his best to be a fiduciary of my capital and guide me toward my financial goals. I had explained my vision for my investment portfolio to him, but he did not understand what I meant by “impact investing” or how to apply it to my portfolio. To him, the purpose of investment management was to make more money or, at least, to preserve capital. Impact investing was nothing more than a soft discipline as far as he was concerned.

That got me thinking: I was frustrated that this smart, well-known advisor at a reputable Swiss bank did not understand what I was driving toward. However, I also knew that he was not the exception but rather the norm. Despite the fact that impact investing comprises more than a quarter of all investing, most people still did not know what it was or how to practice it, and many groups that focus on educating investors target large wealth holders, which most of us are not.

My mind flashed back to a presentation I had given several months before at a conference in Brussels. I was speaking to an audience of about fifty, all of whom were highly successful French and Belgian businesspeople. Confidently, I had launched into my presentation, but within moments, an audience member raised his hand.

“Excuse me, but what exactly is impact investing?”

Others chimed in. Within moments, it was clear that not a single person in the room had any idea what I was talking about. So, for the rest of the presentation, I walked them through it. It was not the talk I had planned, but for them, it was a revelation. Afterward, it was like a switch had been flipped in their heads. These professionals had never heard of impact investing until that day. But now that they had, they were all fascinated by the concept and the ability to think differently about their money.

The more I got to thinking, the more I realized that impact investing, while a growing and increasingly valued practice, had an awareness deficit. Most people I know would love to leverage their money toward a cause that is important to them, but outside of philanthropy, they are not aware that such opportunities exist.

Perhaps this describes you as well. Like my audience in Brussels, you are interested in using your money to make a difference, but you are not sure how. Or, like my investment advisor, you have heard of impact investing, but until now, you have not taken it seriously. Or, you are neither, and you just picked up this book because you like the idea of using your money to do good.

Whatever the case, I wrote this book to show you the value impact investing can create in your life—and the tremendous difference it can have for others and the planet.

Excerpted with permission from The Good Your Money Can Do by Eva Yazhari. Copyright (c) 2021 by Eva Yazhari.

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