When SIIF was founded, its mission was straightforward: to spearhead the development of the impact investment ecosystem in Japan. 8 However, as the impact landscape evolved, so did SIIF’s mandate. By 2019, the foundation had merged with the Institute for the Advancement of Social Innovation, broadening its scope. 9 Another pivotal shift occurred in 2022 when SIIF adopted a new mid-term strategy (FY2022-2025) to encompass a more ambitious vision: “creating an ecosystem for the circulation of social and economic resources.” 10 SIIF’s new strategy (FY2022-2025) revolves around three core objectives: 11 1. Creating symbolic cases and achievements aimed at system change. 2. Extracting practical knowledge from the field to inform practice. 3. Creating a community of diverse practitioners to foster mutual learning. In 2022, SIIF published three Vision Papers to focus more intensely on targeting Japan’s most pressing social issues. 12 These papers outline the current state, theory of change, and action plan for tackling three wicked problems: inequality of opportunity, regional revitalization, and healthcare. This strategy is more than just conceptual. It represents a structured response to Japan’s most pressing social and economic challenges, such as its aging population and rural depopulation, and growing economic inequality. SIIF’s efforts to pilot new models of investment—whether through diversification of investment models, blended finance structures, or community-centric interventions—are designed to create a sustainable and scalable impact framework. “The year 2017 when we founded the Japan Social Impact Investment Foundation (foundation) also marks the tenth year since the term “social impact investment” began to be used worldwide. We launched our foundation with the mission of creating a new flow of funds for promoting solutions to the complex and multi-layered social issues that Japan is facing ahead of other nations and of building and growing a market for social impact investing in Japan.” —Mitsuaki Aoyagi, SIIF Vice-Chair of Executive Committee 7
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Ten Years in the Making
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