Social Finance for Nonprofits

Abstract

In recent years, social finance has gathered significant, and increasingly global, scholarly and policy interest. This chapter provides a brief review of the concepts, history, forms, and policies related to social finance, with a primary focus on the United Kingdom and the United States. Debates around social finance are often focused on commercial or financial dimensions, in which nonprofits are typically not centrally involved. In this chapter, we focus on three key forms of social finance as examples to show how social finance benefits or engages with nonprofit organizations. The three forms of social finance are impact investing, social impact bonds, and crowdfunding, which all have advantages and barriers in serving nonprofits and social enterprises.