Social Impact Funds. Definition, Assessment and Performance.

Social impact funds represent key players in the emerging impact finance industry and a driver for the market growth. The book aims at providing a detailed study of the social impact funds industry. In par- ticular, the book focuses on: • contextualization of social impact funds within the social impact investment market; • explorationoffeatures,investmentstrategiesandclassificationoffunds; • analysisoftheemergentliteratureandofcasestudiesofimpactfunds; • synthetic assessment of the industry, conducted through a cluster analysis; • exploration of investment strategy and mission consistency of funds active in the market aimed to show funds attitude to be defined as “impact-oriented funds”; • investigation of determinants of funds target performance. This book would be useful for scholars and students from different aca- demic disciplines (such as economics, finance, political science, entre- preneurship) and for practitioners interested in impact investing and in the financing of social impact programs through impact-funds.