Our Mission
Our Mission
“To create a marketplace that improves the flow of capital for sustainable investments that generate measurable social and environmental impacts thereby improving humanity and life on earth.”
The Sustainable Organization
Businesses and organizations that positively impact humanity and life on earth focus on products, services, clients, suppliers, and partners that solve real problems, provide real value (including all external costs and benefits), and increase local or global social wealth through their practices. These organizations identify goals and objectives that transcend profits, establish and report on concrete metrics to evaluate their impacts and progress, and act as examples to other organizations on how to be better global citizens.
Positively impacting humanity includes activities that help individuals, groups, organizations, and cultures live dignified, enriching, healthy, safe and happy lives.
Positively impacting life on Earth means working towards the maintenance of Earth’s ecological stability, biological diversity, species richness, ecosystem services, and natural and aesthetic beauty.
Expanding investment opportunities includes activities that enhance the establishment of markets, capital raising, secondary liquidity, standardized reporting, improved communication and information and other activities that increase funding of our listed businesses and organizations.
Mission Markets does not charge membership or listing fees; all fees are success-based and will be earned from a percentage of transaction fees and fixed fees for settling and clearing transactions. These fees are dependent on the type of financial instrument, and in some cases, the issuer intermediary that provides the deal flow.
Background
Mission Markets was founded by individuals with expertise in the traditional capital markets and private company finance who share a passion and dedication for advancing social welfare and environmental conservation. The founders were and remain convinced that the lack of access to financing opportunities in this sector was mostly due to the inadequate standardization and the absence of a centralized marketplace to facilitate transactions.
One of the key features of Mission Markets is the ability to monitor the impact of specific investments. The founders believe that a standard reporting mechanism would create a feedback loop that will result in money being efficiently and effectively allocated for maximum social and environmental impact. The organizations and companies able to show the most impact per dollar invested (Social Return on Investment, SROI) will attract the best financing opportunities.
A Path Forward
Mission Markets seeks to promote the transition of the impact investing industry from its current disorganized and nascent state to the beginning stages of a viable and thriving marketplace. This transition will occur, in part, by fostering the development of a community of impact investing members who have access to a regulated electronic transactions platform, associated information, communications services, data, analytics and investment management tools that facilitate private capital transactions. Mission Markets will make impact investing easier, more effective and more personal.
Impact Investing
Everyday it is becoming more evident that businesses addressing social and environmental issues and opportunities are more than just visionary, but momentous – they see opportunities and act. Traditional capital markets are starting to notice these opportunities as shown by the exploding interest in microfinance institutions. Yet a massive number of private companies and innovative organizations leveraging financial instruments for social or environmental objectives are currently struggling to get financing. These opportunities can be grouped as impact investments.
According to the Monitor Institute, current constraints on Impact Investing include:
- Lack of efficient intermediation – connecting capital to impact investing opportunities
- Lack of enabling infrastructure – including common accreditation, ratings, or valuation standards for environmental and social enterprises that capture both financial and social or “blended” returns
- Lack of sufficient absorptive capacity for capital
- Limited or non-existent secondary market mechanisms for investors to find liquidity or “exit” for their investments
- High cost of capital for issuers and project developers.