Profiting From Our Pain: Privileged Access to Social Impact Investing

This article critically examines the burgeoning social impact investing trend, particularly in the context of persistent funding gaps for sustainable development and a millennial drive for “doing good.” It argues that existing federal securities laws, with their public-private divide, create regulatory loopholes that allow privileged investors to obscure negative externalities and exclusively profit from community pain, especially exacerbated by crises like COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement.