Towards a Bold and Aligned Impact Finance

Among the many ongoing projects for social and environmental transformation, impact finance holds a central place. Increasing amounts of capital are now seeking to combine financial performance with social utility. Major institutions are publishing structuring frameworks. Tools for measuring and quantifying impact are becoming more refined. Nethertheless, a form of tension persists: between the sector’s real advances… and the limits of the paradigm in which it still too often operates.

Yet, as Albert Einstein put it so well, we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.

Proposing to manage the impact using the same operating methods as before will only perpetuate the classic way of proceeding, which has failed in its universalist ambition.

In response to this global dynamic, the Geneva Foundation for the Future offers an alternative and complementary path to outline a space that is both compatible with financial operations and rich in new potential. Through its AGILE tool and its white paper on the convergence between finance, philanthropy and impact projects, it proposes a structuring, evolving, and deeply participatory framework. Far from positioning itself as a counter-model, the Foundation embraces a role as a benevolent catalyst, calling for finance that is bolder, more systemic, and more rooted in the challenges of the living world, the consideration of systemic dimensions, and regenerative economics.

Solid and Shared Foundations

The Foundation welcomes the major advances observed in the classical reference frameworks of impact finance. Among these anchoring points for finance, we currently find:

• Intentionality, additionality and measurability as methodological foundations: these three principles are particularly central to the "Intention" and "Efficiency" pillars of the AGILE tool.

• Alignment with international standards (SDG, ESG, IFRS, IRIS+, IWAF, etc.): the goal today is certainly not to reinvent the wheel but to act as a platform for integration and mutualization of these taxonomies through a lens that brings new potential.

• Co-construction with stakeholders, a key element in both Anglo-Saxon "living document"-type methodologies and the collaborative approach developed in Geneva through participatory workshops and intersectoral committees.

• The monetary valuation of impact, considered a useful tool for comparison and reporting… but for which the Foundation proposes a cautious use, guided by conscious understanding, to avoid any commodification of the living world.

• The pursuit of systemic effects: here again, we believe it is necessary to go further, by making systemic transformation a central evaluation criterion, not merely a bonus or an indirect outcome.

Points of Vigilance and New Proposals

The Geneva Foundation for the Future wishes to mark a clear difference through a constructive reading of current trends in impact finance — and through the responses it offers.

• A field of application too narrow?
  Most sectoral tools remain focused on private equity and venture/growth/buy-out logic. The Foundation, by contrast, also addresses foundations, NGOs, public institutions and hybrid or local projects, in order to broaden as much as possible both the potential and the return on investment — in all its dimensions: financial, social, ecological...

• An obsession with monetization?
  While impact projects have the potential to generate more financial income than traditional projects, they will only be able to do so if other returns on investment (social, ecological, systemic, etc.) are actually present.
  Many frameworks place economic quantification at the heart of decision-making. The Foundation wishes to propose a pluralistic approach that is both easy and simple to use on a daily basis: quantitative and qualitative aspects, financial data and field narratives, and the participation of beneficiaries are all embedded in the "Leadership" pillar of the AGILE tool.

• A lack of focus on the living world, the commons, and regeneration?
  This is arguably one of the most pressing proposals. The Foundation considers that the future of impact finance, impact incubators and evaluation services does not lie solely in Excel spreadsheets, but also in our collective ability to place money at the service of life — and not the other way around. This positioning aligns with work on well-being, active sobriety, climate justice and the care economy, which are strongly supported by the UN.

The AGILE Tool: A Structuring Lever, Not Just Another Label

Developed from three years of academic, field, and co-design work, the AGILE tool (Alignment – Governance – Intention – Leadership – Efficiency) enables a cross-disciplinary reading of impact projects that is both rigorous and adaptable. It is designed to:

• align expectations between funders (philanthropy or investment), project leaders, and institutions;

• facilitate access to funding for high-potential projects that are often poorly calibrated by traditional standards;

• support the skills development of project leaders and evaluators;

• bring high-impact dimensions to projects that are already well-structured economically and industrially;

• create a shared language that transcends sectoral silos.

Rather than a rigid or normative tool, AGILE is a shared interface, an operational metalanguage that can connect to existing frameworks while opening up spaces for innovation.

Daring to Go Further

Impact finance has already crossed key milestones. It has gained in maturity, credibility, and method. If it truly wants to become a lever for transformation, it must take another step forward: move beyond repetitive models, embrace its political role, and fully integrate the challenges of life, long-term thinking, and the commons, in order to become a force for new proposals.

This is the invitation issued today by the Geneva Foundation for the Future: to dare a transformative, inclusive, demanding, regenerative finance. A finance unafraid of its own contradictions, but equipped to move beyond them.

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