NAB And Community Spirit

Today we want to address our gratitude to the National Australia Bank and Impact Investing Australia for a piece of great news – the foundation of a brand new impact investment fund amounting to $1 million. NAB, which is one of the founders of Impact Investing Australia, appears quite keen to start a new process that is bound to shape the social face of Australia for years to come.

The latest report by Impact Investing Australia (which came hand in hand with the announcement of the new fund) is named “Delivering on Impact: The Australian Advisory Board Breakthrough Strategy to Catalyse Impact Investing” and is full of useful content that explains how exactly Australia will become a better place with the help of Impact Investing. According to the specialists who have worked on the report, if everything goes as planned, it will be easy to achieve $10 billion in impact assets in the market.

So what does all that mean? To start with, if you want to do Impact Investing but you don't have the capital to start, now you can access it. If you have a business model that can improve the social and community conditions in Australia, you can realise it with the help of the new fund. If you want to invest in the improvement of Australia and the Australian community and earn at the same time, you only need to find out how and apply for financing. If you have already found out how – so much the better!

The fund will be known as the NAB Impact Investment Grants Program and will be managed by NAB in cooperation with Impact Investing Australia. The Difference Incubator will also have a significant role for making it happen – mainly in terms of the structure and design of the program. As Steve Lambert (who is both part of NAB and Impact Investing Australia) says, "the program is only one of the projects currently being developed to improve the community situation in Australia and overcome any challenges the country may face in the future". According to him, one of the main responsibilities of NAB is to provide their customers with ‘holistic and innovative financial solutions’.

This is a great start for the Australian Impact beginning (although there have been other efforts to push it forward), but it most certainly won’t be enough to help create the Australia we want. Therefore, the National Australia Bank encourages all organisations and businesses out there to contribute to the fund. With mutual effort and hard work, Australia may become a great place for living, investment and business – as long as we want it and fight for it.