Mission investing in Europe - a meta-analysis

Mission Investing (MI) is an umbrella term for the practice of non-profit organizations (NPO) to include their mission into their investment policy. Despite the growing popularity of this concept it still greatly lacks a scientific foundation. This article identifies key characteristics of MI by conducting a conceptual discussion. These characteristics include the incorporation of non-monetary goals into the investments process which are closely related to the organization's mission and values as well as the aim of achieving a more effective mission accomplishment through the unification of investment- and grantmaking policy. Further, in the framework of a meta-analysis, this article compares recently published data from across Europe with regard to the current state-of-art of MI. Among the three basic instruments of MI (screening, shareholder advocacy, and proactive mission investing), screening is used the most.