Investing for a 3Zero world: ACTED to raise €9 million in “charity bonds”

Aurélien Daunay, ACTED’s Vice-CEO for Finance, Innovation and Investment, explains how this strategy of financial innovation contributes to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals: “We seek to invest in projects for the planet. To reinforce the relevance of our actions and our impact, we have developed specialised entities such as microfinance institutions to support local entrepreneurship, a think-and-do tank to better inform the aid sector, and a global advocacy platform aiming at bringing public, private ans solidarity-based actors together to accelerate the achievement of the SDGs. […] ACTED contributes to 11 out of 17 SDGs. We have summarized this under our 3Zero vision: Zero Exclusion, Zero Carbon, Zero Poverty.”

Since 2012, ACTED has therefore diversified its sources of funding by raising “charity bonds” from insitutionnal impact investors. After six successful issues between 2012 and 2019, ACTED is in the process of raising the largest fundraising in its history, with €9 million of “charity bonds”, its largest bond issuance so far. This funding will be used to pre-finance its humanitarian actions and support its 3Zero strategy. This includes the organisation’s green and digital transformation, as well as investments in projects and entities with positive social and environmental impact.