5 key takeaways from the 2025 Impact Investment Summit

The Impact Investment Summit was held at the International Convention Centre in Sydney over 26-27 March 2025. This year marked the 10^th year since the Asia Pacific Impact Investment Summit was founded. 

The event brought together more than 650 delegates including institutional investors, advisors, foundations, family offices, government, organisations and enterprises to explore investment opportunities that couple financial returns, with social and environmental outcomes. 

The Foundations Group for Impact Investing (FGII) had the opportunity to host a panel and member breakfast at the Summit, talking about the challenges for foundations and growth in the impact investing sector.

The FGII member breakfast featured Monique Andrew (Executive Director, Transition Accelerator and Market Information Day alum – pictured above middle) and Rohan Martyres (Director, Strategy and Partnerships, Menzies Foundation – pictured above left).  

The panel ‘Foundations & Family Offices shift towards impact investing’ included Ben Smith (Head of Impact Investing, Paul Ramsay Foundation), Craig Betts (CIO, Snow Foundation), Stacey Thomas (CEO, The Wyatt Trust) and me – Michelle Di Fabio (Program Director, FGII).  

Key reflections from the two FGII hosted sessions include: 

1. The global impact investing market is growing, and so are foundations 

According to global peak body GIIN, the global impact investing market holds over 1.5Bn USD in assets under management and has experienced over 20% year on year growth since 2019. In recent years we have witnessed significant growth and deployment of capital by philanthropic investors into impact investment. Growth, however, brings challenges and opportunities as explored over the Summit. 

2. There’s a continued focus on capacity building and alignment 

Skills development, internal capability and values alignment are a continued focus for foundations. Both panels spoke about the importance of partnerships and outsourced resources including the engagement of advisers, investment managers and board members with impact investing experience to support the uplifting of capability and deep expertise. Alignment and shared values across staff, board and key stakeholders continue to be a focal point.  

3. Bring advisors along the journey 

Bringing advisers along the journey was a key theme at the Summit. The shift by foundations and family offices towards impact investing highlighted this point and the importance of partnership and shared goals. The Summit hosted the Endowments for Impact Challenge finale, a pivotal initiative for Australia’s philanthropic sector, highlighting the demand for innovative, mission-driven investment solutions, while aiming to inspire collaboration and the development of best practices within the sector. (See also the Giving News article about the Endowments for Impact Challenge). 

4. A growing and impressive pipeline of impact opportunities  

The Summit program this year introduced new thematic-based streams across climate, community, healthcare, climate-tech, edtech and medtech. These themes demonstrated an impressive cohort of impact opportunities across a spectrum of concessionary to risk adjusted returns. Monique shared her journey as a speaker at a past FGII Market Information Day – an event that raises awareness of For Purpose Organisations (FPOs) actively seeking impact capital and support.  

5. Importance of community 

Forums like FGII provides safe spaces for Foundations and Charitable Funders to connect, facilitate shared learnings and support each other along the journey. Both panels acknowledged the invaluable role of peer support on their journey, transparently discussing challenges, success, and a focus on the authorising environment. The Summit also hosted the Impact Investment Awards showcasing trailblazers and innovative products and solutions building the impact investment sector. 

^{The panel ‘Foundations & Family Offices shift towards impact investing’. Left to right: Craig Betts, Stacey Thomas, Ben Smith and Michelle Di Fabio. Photo credit for this photo and above:  Oneill Photographics}

FGII recently celebrated its one year anniversary and in the member breakfast we announced milestones and key reflections including:  

• Membership growth to more than 55 organisations, representing a diverse range of foundations, trusts and charitable funders across life-stages of impact investing; Engagement with over 30 ‘For Purpose Organisations’ through the Market Information Days; and The development of a community of close to 500 individuals including funders, non-funders, intermediaries and guests with a shared vision to grow and support the impact investing sector.

• An additional three years of funding to expand the pilot program, with thanks to Minderoo Foundation, Paul Ramsay Foundation, and other funders. 

 
The 2025 FGII program will introduce quarterly hybrid Market information Days, to maximise face to face networking (across Australia) and the continued focus on member (peer-peer) sessions as a closed and trusted network to facilitate knowledge sharing and learning for foundations and charitable funders.  

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The Foundations Group for Impact Investing (FGII) is an independent impact investing market-building initiative (hosted by Philanthropy Australia) established in 2023. FGII exists to improve the supply and demand for impact capital. FGII achieves this through convening foundations and charitable funders who are interested in starting or enhancing their impact investing activities.  All are welcome to join the FGII community here.