The Geneva Foundation for the Future is pleased to offer you access to the AGILE White Paper, September 2025
Philanthropy - Investments - Incubation - Policies and strategies
Do you believe that finance is a tool capable of transforming the world?
At the Geneva Foundation for the Future, we believe that impact projects can deliver better results—whether in philanthropy or investment—than traditional business models or those based solely on CSR. This is true in the short, medium, and long term, provided that their economic model is consistent and promotes positive dynamics (virtuous circles). Impact goes beyond ESG: it opens up a new field for entrepreneurship and finance, combining a desire for solutions with financial performance.
This White Paper reveals an unprecedented bridge between philanthropy, investment and impact projects, with many concrete references that can be used on a daily basis.
This key document provides a comprehensive overview of Impact Finance and its current and future directions, for use by major philanthropists, foundations and individual donors, as well as by family offices, hedge funds, banks, private investors, asset managers and business angels.
Discover in this edition the AGILE tool for impact finance (Philanthropy, Investments and Incubation), the fruit of 3 years of collaboration, a shared framework for identifying, evaluating and financing transformative initiatives that generate revenues and returns on investment.
Co-constructed with representatives from all areas of finance, philanthropy and impact, it provides a common language for public, private and committed players. It has been designed to be compatible with all the different impact assessment and impact finance tools and standards currently in use. As a real open sesame, it makes simple and easy to integrate all of these frameworks sometimes complex.
Consult the White Paper to join a global movement towards regenerative, transparent reality-rooted finance.
Synthetic Content: towards aligned, agile, and regenerative finance
- Global Diagnostic: details the abundance of unallocated capital, in contrast with high-impact projects that are insufficiently funded.
More than 4 trillion dollars are lacking each year to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs*), despite record global liquidity, all in a context where financially profitable economic models are emerging in the fields of entrepreneurship and impact infrastructure.
- Strategic Convergence: ongoing and future alignment of finance, philanthropy, and grassroots initiatives to address climate, social, and economic emergencies.
A proactive vision: finance as a systemic lever for transformation, oriented towards economic and industrial resilience, ecological regeneration, and social justice.
- The AGILE tool, a shared interface:
A deliberately simple and agile intersectoral methodology for everyday use, based on 5 families of operational criteria, resulting from 3 years of collaborative work involving various finance professions:
Alignment – Governance – Intention – Leadership – Efficiency.
- Ready-to-use evaluation grids:
- Scoring on 6 levels.
- Collaborative dashboards.
- Interoperability with ESG** taxonomies, SDGs and public criteria.
- Participatory and transdisciplinary methodology: co-construction with experts, public institutions, incubators, project leaders, and philanthropists.
- Framework compatible with international standards:
The AGILE tool integrates SDG (UN) indicators, ESG (financial) indicators, and the requirements of public funders to maximize transparency and regulatory compatibility. - Shared governance and open platform:
Pooled access to tools, training, mentoring, evaluation services, and legal structuring for impact projects. - Identification, Evaluation, Selection, Monitoring and Mentoring of impact projects:
Scenarios and case studies on the use of the AGILE tool to direct funds towards small, medium and large-scale impact projects, as well as infrastructure projects.
- A strategic toolbox:
- For foundations: invest according to their values, with leverage effect.
- For investors: secure risk through alignment with public criteria.
- For institutions: standardize calls for projects and strengthen collaborations.
- For impact incubators: simplified reception and mentoring for start-ups, NGOs and large-scale projects.
- For project leaders (small, medium, large, infrastructural): demonstrate the financial viability and profitability of their impact.
- Optimization tool for industrial or high-impact projects:
A concrete application of the AGILE tool makes it possible to evaluate large-scale projects (infrastructure, hybrid models, Social Impact Bonds***, etc.).
- International case studies:
Presentation of proven models (Europe, Africa, Asia, Latin America), implementing blended finance, community-based approaches, and structural innovations and forward-looking recommendations.
- An evolving Tool box:
Practical guide for impact assessment for investors and decision-makers, updated based on feedback from ecosystem members.
- Strategic recommendations:
For public actors, organizational leaders, policymakers, to adapt investment policies to impact imperatives, with shared criteria and interoperable tools.
Note:
*SDGs = United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
**ESG = Criteria for responsible finance "Environmental, Social, Governance."
***SIB = Social Impact Bonds (SIB) are social impact obligations that link private financing and performance measured against public objectives.
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