press | February 4, 2025
15 Years After its Launch, the GIIN Examines the Future of a $1.5 Trillion Market
The GIIN launched at Clinton Global Initiative 2009 Annual Meeting
Over the past 15 years, impact investing has grown to advance global solutions for climate resilience, global healthcare, housing, energy, and more
Partnerships with CGI and The Rockefeller Foundation will continue to be critical to the future of impact investing
In 2009, on the main stage of the Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting, President Bill Clinton stood next to Amit Bouri and his founding partners as they launched a new idea: the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN).
The GIIN started as a 22-member community of investors committed to using their investing power not only to produce financial gains, but also to produce social and environmental benefits.
Bouri, CEO of the GIIN, recalled President Clinton going slightly off-script during his remarks to say, “This is one of those ideas that you’re not really sure if it’s going to work…but if it does, it can really change the world.”
At The Rockefeller Foundation, the GIIN marked 15 years as a global champion for impact investing, and leader of a movement that continues to leverage capital to advance global solutions in the fields of sustainable agriculture, energy, healthcare, and more. Dr. Chelsea Clinton, Vice Chair of the Clinton Foundation, joined Bouri and cross-sector colleagues to discuss the current state of impact investing and look ahead to the next 15 years.
For an anniversary event, the focus was squarely on the future.
“People are excited about leveraging capital to solve these social problems. It’s not just about return, so many institutions are now prioritizing impact investing funds and seeing that change in the world is really remarkable,” said Elizabeth Yee, Executive Vice President of Programs at The Rockefeller Foundation.
But as funding gaps widen and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) go unmet, now is the time to take the work further and faster, she said. According to Clinton, the future of impact investment must include more cross-sector perspectives at the table, more investments in proven solutions, all while remaining aligned on an equitable mission to make tangible impacts.
CGI will celebrate its 20th anniversary this year, Clinton said, as she described President Clinton’s work to make AIDS drugs more accessible through the Clinton Health Access Initiative or CHAI, which informed the creation of CGI. For both the GIIN and CGI, partnerships played a pivotal role in the creation and sustainability of their work, and will continue to be a key to success in the future.
“There’s real power in the diversity of perspective,” Bouri said, “and a real potential in helping unlock new solutions, new thinking, and also build bridges and understanding. And that continues to be necessary today.”
“We all can bear witness to the power of partnership in our own lives, particularly when we have partners from across the different sectors because we understand that different actors have different kinds of fluency with starting something versus scaling something versus sustaining something,” Clinton said.
They also discussed the importance of amplifying what’s working. Today, Clinton said, we know how to dramatically improve outcomes for global healthcare, climate resilience, and more, so in the next 15 years, it’s imperative to pour into those solutions while also developing innovative models for capital to facilitate and sustain progress.
For the next 15 years of the GIIN, Clinton hoped to see more multi-sectoral perspectives within the impact investing community – not only banks, insurers, and university endowments, but also individual investors who share the GIIN’s vision for building a better world. She hoped to use the lessons from what is working to reshape systems for a lasting impact. She also imagined a future where high school and college students are able to see the possibilities of impact investing to build the future they want to see.