Principles for Social Investment

The Principles for Social Investment is an initiative of the United Nations Global Compact to provide an ethical foundation and guidelines for social investment by companies and their foundations, community foundations and private foundations and thereby encourage an integrated, strategic and sustainable approach to improve long-term ‘returns’ to key stakeholders – including populations benefiting from social investment and the investors.

Social investment is the practice of making voluntary financial and non-financial contributions that demonstrably help local communities and broader societies to address the societal priorities of both developed and developing countries. Leaders of corporations and grant-making institutions increasingly recognize the importance of responsible social investment, ensuring not only the optimal impact of their contributions, but also their alignment with broader societal goals.

The United Nations Global Compact Principles for Social Investment (PSI) promote contributions that are

  • purposeful,
  • accountable,
  • respectful, and
  • ethical.

By distilling best practices into a set of voluntary principles that guide the ongoing practice of social investment by organizations, the PSI seek to increase the positive impact and scalability of such contributions for the advancement of societies. Forthcoming measurement guidance on the PSI will enable companies and other grant-making institutions to track improvement in their adherence to these principles over time.

Launched in 2000, the UN Global Compact is a call to companies everywhere to (i) align internal operations with its ten universal principles in the areas of human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption and (ii) take action in support of broad UN goals, including the Millennium Development Goals. Beyond a commitment to the ten principles if companies wish to engage in social investment, the PSI are intended to cause that such additional voluntary contributions – whether financial or non-financial – have significant impact on the sustainable development of societies.

With the introduction of the PSI, the UN Global Compact seeks to offer guidance for organizations pursuing responsible social investment practices, including companies and their foundations, community foundations, private foundations and non-governmental organizations.

External Resources

http://www.unglobalcompact.org/newsandevents/2010_Leaders_Summit/index.html