The Impact World This Week: 24 April 2025

Global: The World Economic Forum launched an investigation into its founder Klaus Schwab this week, following a whistleblower letter. This came a day after 87-year-old Schwab (pictured) announced he was resigning immediately as WEF chair. The Wall Street Journal reported that the anonymous whistleblower alleged financial and ethical misconduct by Schwab and his wife Hilde Schwab. In a statement, the WEF said that the allegations remained unproven and would not comment further until the investigation concluded. The Schwabs founded the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship in 1998, which launched the Global Alliance for Social Entrepreneurship in 2020. 

• Read more: WEF founder Klaus Schwab raises the stakes on resetting capitalism

South Africa: The social economy is South Africa’s largest employer and contributes nearly 5% to GDP, according to research previewed ahead of its launch next month. Reana Rossouw, owner of Next Generation Consultants shared the insights in a LinkedIn post, pointing out that outdated and scattered data sources made determining the sector’s precise size a challenge.

• Read more: The business of boosting equality: South Africa’s mission to create decent jobs

Global: Impact investors are prioritising climate initiatives, but democracy and sanitation are less favoured, according to Cruising Altitude, the 2025 report from Toniic’s T100 Project, a study of more than 100 portfolios since 2016. Sustainable development goals 13 (climate action) and 7 (affordable and clean energy) had the most funds allocated, showing a shift from SDG 11 (sustainable cities and communities). The research also found that investors needed to accept illiquidity for greater impact, and that many were willing to make this tradeoff. This year’s report covers 107 portfolios representing US$3.5bn.

• Read more: How impact investors can support democracy to thrive

Global: Social innovation is defined as “pursuing novel approaches to tackle challenges facing people and planet”, according to the Government Council for Social Innovation, a coalition of governments aiming to advance social innovation globally. The definition was agreed at the council’s inaugural summit in Luxembourg earlier this month. 

Europe: Triodos Bank left the Net Zero Banking Alliance last week, due to a vote by members to lower the alliance’s climate ambitions. In a statement, the sustainable bank said the alliance’s new guidelines “fall short of the needed urgency to align loans and investments portfolios with the 1.5 degrees celsius global warming scenario”. The Net Zero Banking Alliance numbers more than 120 banks from around the world.

USA: A civil rights activist and a former chair of Bono’s One Campaign are among the four advisors appointed to OpenAI’s new Nonprofit Commission which has been created to inform the global AI company’s nonprofit arm, with the aim of expanding its reach and impact. The members are Dolores Huerta, Monica Lozano, Dr Robert K Ross, and Jack Oliver, and they have 90 days to submit their insights to the OpenAI board. This comes as OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, aims to restructure from being mainly nonprofit to being more fully for-profit through becoming a public benefit corporation. 

• Read more: Analysis: Is OpenAI impact washing by becoming a public benefit corporation?

Movers and Shakers

• The Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship has been renamed as the Miller Center for Global Impact to reflect a shift from being an accelerator for social entrepreneurs with post-programme support to “cultivating a thriving community of changemakers” as well as expanding its impact investing role.
• Chad Sachs is the new CEO of impact investor NEsT, replacing Kirsten Dueck. He was previously the organisation’s chief investment officer.
• Rikkert Beerekamp is joining Phenix Capital Group as chief investment officer.
• Impact investor BlueOrchard has appointed Michael Wehrle as CEO, succeeding Philipp Mueller. .