Duke has long been a leader in thought on social entrepreneurship. A recent press release from their Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship announces the creation of their new initiative on impact investment: Case i3. From their press release.
“Impact investors seek to generate environmental and social impacts in addition to financial returns,” said Cathy Clark, a professor at Fuqua and director of CASE i3. “This emerging investment strategy, subject of a White House conference in June 2011, has developed as a way to expand the ability of for-profit and some nonprofit ventures to scale their impacts on critical problems such as energy, health and education. JP Morgan estimates that this market offers the potential for invested capital of $400 billion-$1 trillion and profits of $183-$667 billion over the next 10 years.”
As part of the initiative, CASE faculty members, in collaboration with the UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School, are teaching a new course on impact investing in spring 2012. In addition, they are writing new teaching cases on the subject and are working with practitioners in the field to develop the new kinds of intermediary infrastructures to support entrepreneurs.
Campus Entrepreneurship 