As we enter the holiday season, you might be looking for creative ways to give back to others. Especially in these stressful and turbulent times.
And while it’s not often the two go hand in hand, there are ways to give back to your favorite charitable causes… while also making a world-changing investment that could give you a potential profit.
It’s called “impact investing.”
And it involves investing in companies that benefit society. For example, companies that focus on green energy… or businesses that build affordable housing.
And these aren’t just feel-good types of investments, either. They’re real-world ideas that often outperform the market.
Take the MSCI All Country World Index Fund (ACWI)… and MSCI ACWI ESG Universal Index. (ESG stands for Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance.)
ACWI covers 3,000-plus stocks in 49 countries. So it’s a good proxy for global markets. And as its name implies, ESG focuses on impact investing.
The ESG version of the index has beaten ACWI in seven out of the past 10 years. And it’s outperforming in 2022, too.
ESG-focused exchange-traded funds (ETFs) saw record asset flows during the COVID-19 pandemic. They recently hit an all-time high of over $100 billion in assets.
While there was an outflow of $108 billion this year as the broad market fell, that’s proportionally smaller than the outflows in non-ESG funds.
Today, I’ll show you how you can potentially earn up to 7x times the interest you’d receive in a bank account by investing in causes near and dear to your heart…
Turn Your Investment Into Philanthropy
In the past, we’ve recommended Calvert Impact Capital’s Community Investment Note as an opportunity to profit from investing in causes you support. And we still think that’s a good option today.
For example, in 2021 Calvert Impact Capital’s partners have helped:
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Create or preserve 36,700 homes.
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Improved access to energy for 28.1 million people.
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House 315,097 people.
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Create or retain 581,498 jobs.
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Support 419,652 farmers.
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Avoid over 24 million metric tons of CO2 emissions.
And these investments are actually bearing fruit…
Take Community Housing Capital (CHC), for example. It’s a Calvert borrower.
CHC lends flexible capital to affordable housing developers, offering financing to fill needs across a project’s lifecycle, from early-stage predevelopment to long-term, 30-year multifamily permanent mortgages.
Single-family homeownership is a critical path to wealth generation. And CHC has been effective in reaching low-income families and people of color who otherwise could not afford to purchase their own home, particularly due to rapidly rising housing prices across the U.S. in the past two years.
That’s just one example of how the Community Investment Note is helping underserved communities…
And beyond a social return, the Community Investment Note offers an attractive financial return.
Here are the rates and terms as of December 2022:
| Interest Rate | Term |
| 1.0% | 1 Year |
| 2.0% | 3 Year |
| 3.0% | 5 Year |
| 4.0% | 10 Year |
You might think these returns look low. But all five options have much higher rates – anywhere from 6x to 10x greater – than traditional income-producing assets like certificates of deposit (CDs).
For instance, if you put $10,000 in a five-year jumbo CD, you could earn about 1.25% right now. That translates into $125.
But if you put $10,000 in Calvert’s 10-year note, the return would be $400. That’s 320% more – just for investing in a good cause.
A Win-Win Scenario
If you want to get into impact investing, consider the Community Investment Note.
Not only does your money go to a good cause… you also earn a higher interest rate than letting some extra cash sit in your bank still earning next to nothing. And at the end of the term, you get your money back.
Best of all, you can start with as little as $20.
If you want more information about the Calvert Impact Capital’s Community Investment Note, click here. As always, do your homework before making any investment.
It feels good to help someone else in need. But if you can also make money while doing so… it’s a win-win scenario.
Regards,
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Andrew Packer
Analyst, Palm Beach Daily
P.S. Let us know if you plan to take part in an “impact investment.” And tell us if you’d like to hear about other opportunities in this space by emailing us here.