Area: Measurement evaluation and reporting

Datasets for economic mobility

Datasets for economic mobility

CURATED COLLECTION
Posted on
Download

Wealth inequality and income inequality in the United States are significantly higher than in other OECD countries. And economic mobility is rigid. The likelihood of an individual moving from low wealth status to high wealth status over the course of their lifetime is low. Income disparity and wealth inequality are rooted in an array of social and economic factors, including race and geography. These factors create what is known as the economic opportunity gap.

This Curated Collection provides social impact leaders in the public and private sectors with a roundup of data-driven tools to strengthen their decision-making processes in addressing the economic opportunity gap. The resources provide specific consideration for indicators of racial equity and social justice and factors that promote mobility for disadvantaged groups across neighborhoods, communities, and states.

Resources include (but are not limited to) the following: 

  • Tools that allow companies to benchmark themselves against others on strategy and progress; 
  • Datasets that support deciding which communities would benefit most from company investments to increase equity;
  • Resources that encourage companies to prioritize racial and social factors that affect indicators of wealth (e.g., access to education and employment, and asset ownership).
Share this report
Recommended Features

The state of play: U.S. philanthropy

The state of play: U.S. philanthropy

Philanthropy provides risk-tolerant capital in a way that government and business cannot. It is a necessary ingredient to solving the world’s social and environmental problems. A new wave of giving that can propel projects forward with equity and justice at the fore is increasingly contingent on funders not only donating their financial resources but also embedding the values of trust-based approaches into their overall strategy. This trend report describes five key trends for U.S. philanthropy in 2022:

The trends: 

  • Funders have increased their giving over the last two years, sometimes significantly, but growth in nominal giving hides the fact that funders are donating less of what they earn
  • Trust-based philanthropy found its foothold in the midst of crisis; today, funders are sustaining and evolving those principles
  • Funders are doing more to prioritize racial and social justice in their giving, yet BIPOC voices remain too marginalized in decision-making 
  • Funders are realizing philanthropy’s potential to support climate interventions, but their actual investments are incommensurate to the challenge
  • Collaborative approaches are gaining momentum and proving their impact, even among institutional funders; collective investing models adopt a power sharing approach, taking learnings from individual giving as well as trust- and place-based initiatives
Share this report
Recommended Features

The state of play: ESG

The state of play: ESG

ESG describes an array of non-financial factors that investors, regulators, and other stakeholders use to evaluate the performance of companies. The growing popularity of ESG-motivated investing is contributing to more transparent and rigorous corporate reporting practices as well as operational changes aligned with improved social and environmental impact. ESG factors are increasingly understood as interconnected with–rather than distinct from–the financial performance and value of a company.

ESG can retain the attention it has garnered over the past few years if companies and investors better match their public commitments with operational rigor. Skeptics will undoubtedly remain, but ESG can become a powerful force for change if stakeholders make it so. This trend report describes five key trends for ESG in 2022:

The trends: 

  • Social issues are at once more fragmented and more important to the general public than climate concerns; as companies concentrate their climate commitments around carbon neutrality and net zero, the public is likely to become even less forgiving of those that perform poorly on social factors.
  • Dozens of ESG reporting frameworks and regulatory standards exist in jurisdictions around the globe; efforts are underway to consolidate and simplify those frameworks for the sake of consistent and universal reporting requirements.
  • Investors and companies are seeking deeper expertise and greater accountability related to ESG on their management teams, staff, and boards; the marketplace for that talent is not yet well established. Soon, that will change.
  • More retail investors, small funds, and large institutional investors are embracing an activist posture related to ESG and expressing growing skepticism that companies will make good on their commitments; the efficacy of ESG-motivated investor activism is on the rise, too.
  • Until recently, private markets have taken a back seat to public markets in ESG investing; now, private equity investors are playing a major role in the next chapter of the ESG story.
Share this report
Recommended Features